


We Can Paint The Town In Blue

by PrinceofDarkness15



Category: BlacKkKlansman (2018), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Police, Anal Sex, Blood, Cunnilingus, Eventual Happy Ending, Explicit Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Falling In Love, Flip is the rookie in this fanfic, Office Sex, Partners to Lovers, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Resolved Sexual Tension, Rough Oral Sex, sexual tension right from the get go!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:54:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 54,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27729106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrinceofDarkness15/pseuds/PrinceofDarkness15
Relationships: Rey (Star Wars)/Flip Zimmerman
Comments: 21
Kudos: 39
Collections: Finished Works





	1. Chapter 1

FLIP ZIMMERMAN

A burglary sounds ten times more exciting than this. Burglars are opportunities, generally, and the ones that are smart enough to do it more than once are smart enough to know how to do it right. Know what you want and take it while no one else is around. Sticking a gun in a bank-teller's face isn't exactly going to get you anything but a prison sentence---but if we're talking about the kind of theft that happens without anyone getting hurt? 

And for shit that isn't federally protected? Well, be clever and you might just get away with it. Anyway, alarm calls for business structures at night usually turn out to be nothing out of the ordinary. 

Bad wiring or teenagers goofing off or--most commonly---a night cleaning crew with an old alarm code. And the turns-out-to-be-nothing calls are frequent enough that I'm surprised when I get over to the scene and actually find broken glass everywhere. 

A brief and welcome shot of adrenaline pulses through me as I call it in and draw my weapon to search the premises. Empty. 

With a disappointment that is as irrational as it is unwanted, I update dispatch and call for my sergeant. "Trapp," he answers in his usual clipped way.

"Hey, Sarge, it's Zimmerman. I'm responding to that alarm at 10533 West Steiner Street, and I think I should call Detective Kenobi in. It looks like another one of her doctor's office kind-of robberies."

I can tell by the pause on the other end of the phone that my sergeant has no idea what I'm talking about. 

"She sent over an email about it last week," I add. "Asking to be alerted if there was another one, which I think this is."

I hear clicking and sighing and guess that Trapp is double-checking his own inbox to find Detective Kenobi's email. "All right, kid," Trapp says. "I've found the email. Looks like calling her in is what we need to do."

That at least gives me some kind of satisfaction. Maybe there is no one to chase, nothing to _do,_ but at least I can make sure the right person gets the right information the first time around. But if I'm being honest, this isn't a lot of satisfaction. 

_Well, Flip, what did you expect when you took a job working for a suburban police department in Springs Colorado? Firefights? Car chases?_

No, I knew exactly what I was doing when I applied at Colorado Springs Police Department. My sister, Pamala just had her second baby, my folks were retiring, and I wanted to put down my own set of roots. I wanted to buy a house and maybe even get my degree and settle down.

I wanted something more than the stop-and-start life of active duty in the army like I had before. I walk out of the doctor's office and crunch across the broken glass back towards my car for the crime-scene tape, taking in the typical Colorado Springs night as I do. I take in the empty parking lot, still puddled and from an earlier storm and lit by lonely light poles, and I take in the distant roar of the interstate and the rustling of wet tree leaves in the wind. 

I smell the suburban air, a mix of wet grass, sand and gasoline. The almost-country and the almost-city mixed perfectly together. I smell home. 

Although for being home sweet suburban home, Colorado Springs is plenty busy and plenty grim. As the second-most populous city in the state of Colorado, with almost four-hundred and fifty thousand people, every type of crime comes out to play. 

Domestic abuse, drug abuse, battery, assault, theft, and so many auto burglaries that they have their own unit in the investigation division. As I know from my own childhood growing up in a shitty apartment tucked behind a Walmart, Colorado Springs isn't all happy middle-class families and prosperity. 

But even with all the word that needs to be done, the pace of the life here after six years in the army, and three hellish stints in Afghanistan feels, well...boring and uneventful. 

Trapp arrives right as I am pulling the tape from my car, and after him comes, Stallworth, Creek, Finn and Dameron. Together it doesn't take long to get the scene roped off and secure, and afterward, I slid into my car and start sketching out the beginnings of my report.

I hate doing paperwork, but if there's one thing I learned from the army, it's that there's no point in putting off the things that you hate. Especially paperwork. It just bites you in the ass harder when the time comes.

"I heard they called in the Ice Queen," Stallworth says, coming over to lean against my car and talking to me through my open window.

Stallworth's fresh out of field training, like me, but a couple of years younger, and sometimes that couple of years feels more like decades. But as my grandmother used to say, I'm an old soul, and I'm sure fighting in a literal war did nothing to make that soul any younger. So I take a deep breath and try to be patient with the fact that this guy wants to shoot the shit while all I want is to get my work done.

"Ice Queen?" I ask, not looking up from the report screen of the mounted tablet in the car. 

"Yeah, man. Rey Kenobi. You haven't heard about her?" 

I could point out that in a department of nearly four hundred commissioned officers, there are a lot of people I haven't even heard of, but I don't bother. Stallworth doesn't need my help keeping a conversation going. 

"So get this. Years and years ago, she was engaged to another cop, and he was killed in the line of duty. Killed _right in front of her._ And when the other officers arrived on the scene, they found her sitting on the steps outside the house where he was killed and she's covered in his blood from trying to do CPR, and the first thing she says is, "Can I wash my hands?" 

He pauses for effect, I just keep on typing. He keeps going, with more hand gestures now, to drive home his point.

"Not 'Oh my God, my fiancé is fucking dead' or 'Someone wheel me to the psych war because I just watched the man I love bleed out' or anything like that. Nope. 'Can I wash my hands?" She was even _crying._ And they said she never even cried, like ever, not even at his funeral. How messed up is that?" 

Honestly, I don't think it's messed up at all. Everyone reacts to trauma differently. I once saved a civilian's life by shoving my fingers into an open wound in his thigh, and three hours later I was eating nachos in the DFAC and complaining about how the Chief's couldn't get their shit together.

The only way to keep living after these moments is to focus on the tiny realities that, when stitched together, make life normal. Washing your hands. Nachos. Talking about things that don't matter.

To stay normal you have to pretend to be normal. It's compartmentalization---but you can't say that word to the therapists and counselors because then they start nodding and writing stuff down. 

"Who's they?" I ask, looking up from my tablet. 

Stallworth's brows furrowed together. "What do you mean?"

"You said _they_ are saying this stuff about Detective Kenobi. Who is they?"

He waves an impatient hand. "It's just like---stories, man. Gossip and stuff."

"Why does anyone really care?"

"Because she's still, like frigid bitch about it," Stallworth states as if it's obvious. 

For some reason, his words pisses me off. "That's highly unprofessional of you to say," I tell him. "Not to mention shitty." 

Ron rolls his eyes and his body at the same time in a kind of oh _come ON gesture._ "You're really no fun at all, Zimmerman."

"So I've heard," I say, getting back to my report. 

"Ugh. Fine. But mark my words when you meet her. Frig---"

I give him an irritated glare, and he finally, thankfully shuts up and leaves me alone. Ice Queen. I wonder what she's actually like. My mom was a firefighter, and I know being a woman and a first responder means walking along a wire with no safety net. Too passive and you get ignored for promotions and recognition. Too aggressive and you get labeled a bitch. 

Act like a man and you'll succeed---but then you'll be punished for not being enough like a woman. This reflection, along with random thoughts about being home and being bored, filter through my mind as a civilian car rolls into the parking lot.

A very nice civilian car. I watched with interests as it coasts into a spot and stops and then with even more interests as a woman climbs out in a blouse and skirt---no uniform, although there is a badge clipped to the waist of her skirt.

Detective Rey Kenobi. She's slender, upright, with posture and movements so graceful that there must be ballet shoes in her past---ski trips and horses too,

Dark brown hair waves just past her shoulders, sleek and glamorous in that Old Hollywood kind of way, and the drape of her silk blouse and the fitted hug of her pencil skirt scream money and delicacy restraint. She is sophistication embedded. 

And all of this refined dignity is coupled with a direct, determined stride and quick, efficient assessments of her surroundings. She exudes confidence. Independence. Power.

I don't know about the _ice_ part, but the queen? Yes, I can see it from here. In the thirty seconds it takes her to tuck her leather portfolio against her stomach and walk into the building, Rey Kenobi obliterates any thoughts of boredom or disappointment, and I feel a strange holt of unhappiness when she walks out of my sight. 

I close out my tablet with a few impatient stabs and get out of my car. Talking to her is the only thing that I want to do. 


	2. Chapter 2

REY KENOBI

I'll never concede that crime scenes and high heels don't mix. I duck under the yellow tape to find the on duty sergeant and notice a spray of broken glass on the ground. With a rueful glance down at my nude Manolo Blahniks, I pick my way carefully through the sparkling debris to the man facing away from me, talking to the radio on his shoulder. 

I've never been more grateful for my years of ballet and yoga as I am when I make it to him with my balance and dignity both intact. 

Sergeant Trapp gives me a friendly--if slightly disbelieving--once-over as I reach him, eyeing my silk blouse and tailored pencil skirt. A sleek leather portfolio is tucked under my elbow. 

"You just rolled out of bed like that, huh?" he asks, letting go of her radio and gesturing for me to follow her through, a doorway to the real crime scene. 

I smile as we walk in, but I don't answer. Sergeant Nick Trapp and I went through the academy together, and while we're friends, his remarks about my clothes have always been more than a little pointed. _Detective Dry Clean Only_ is his favorite nickname for me---which I suppose is nicer than the one they call me when I'm not around. 

Officer Ice Queen. They've been calling me that since my fiancé's funeral six years ago. The funeral where I didn't cry, didn't mourn, didn't expose a single silver of the raw, howling pain that i actually felt. 

"Tell me what we've got," I say, setting aside the sharp memories and taking in the scene. "Same as last time?"

Trapp spoke. "Even down to the timing. Doctor's office, hit after ten. The window around the back door is broken--likely what triggered the alarm. We had a uniform here within seven minutes. He searched the office and the rest of the building. No one in sight." 

I look around the half-lit waiting room. There's a glass from the broken window out on the sidewalk and a spray of shards glinting on the carpet. The usual array of pointless, uninteresting magazines are still neatly arranged on the tables, and the corner houses a collection of wooden toys. 

Excepts for the glass, it could be well-kept, undisturbed waiting room, all but---

"The television again," I murmur, finding what I was looking for.

A bare TV mount on the wall, random wires and cords dangling from the ceiling above it. "Yep," Trapp agrees. "My guy saw it right away. He was the one who told me to call you, by the way. Actually read your email about it all."

"And you didn't read my email?" I asked absently, walking up the wall and examining the mount. 

"Do you know how many emails I get in a day?" asks Trapp. 

It's a rhetorical question, so I don't bother answering him, but I do say, "That was attentive of your officer to remember it. I'd like to speak with him, if I may." 

"Sure. And the office manger is here too. She might be able to give you a preliminary report of what's missing." 

"Nothing will be missing." I say, more to myself than Trapp, still looking at the mount. 

It was poorly installed, and drywall dust litters the carpet below, as if dislodging the television from the mount sent a shower of the stuff everywhere. "They just want the TVs."

A string of similar robberies has plagued the city for the past two months. It's always doctor's offices, its always TVs, and it's always at night. I normally work in crimes against persons--homicides, stalking, assault---but my experience working a similar case for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation a few years back had my sergeant pulling me to work this one.

I don't mind, since my usual caseload is a lot grimmer than stolen televisions, but it has been unexpectedly frustrating. I have one of the highest case clearance rates in the department; I'm not used to failing.

Yet I've been on this once for four solid weeks with nothing to show for it. It's galling, and an unfamiliar itch of restlessness works its way down my spine. It's everything I can do to maintain my poise as I turn back to Trapp. 

"The scene techs are taking pictures?"

"Already done. They're working on trying to lift prints now, but good luck with a fucking waiting room, you know?" 

I make an agreeing kind of noise as we head back toward like scheduling desks, where a wan young woman stands next to a copier. She looks stunned, a confused kind of afraid, and a frisson of impatience skates through me. There are far worse things than a stolen television---particularly one stolen when no one was around---and I want to tell her that. I want to tell her she doesn't realize what horrors life can present.

What fears. Even when my fiancé had died, I still managed to keep my pain and terror and guilt locked safely inside---

I stop the train of thought immediately. It's not helping the strange restless itch burrowing deeper and deeper into my chest. An itch that seems to be equal parts vexation over the case and some indefinable need.

I take a subtle breath, remind myself that this girl is probably in her early twenties and that i don't need to infect her with my jaded, twenty-nine year old weariness. "I'm Detective Rey Kenobi," I say, extending my hand.

She looks at it for a moment, lost, and then seems to remember what's expected and shakes it, "Rose," she replies.

Trapp grins at her. "Good name."

"Uh, yeah. Tico. Last name." She lets out a huffy little laugh, as if realizing hoe wooden she's being. "Sorry. This is just so weird for me."

I give her a small smile. "We'll need you to submit to a complete list of everything missing or disturbed in the office, Rose, but whatever you can tell me now will be helpful for the initial report." 

She shakes her heat, looking lost. "It's only the television...it's bewildering. It's just _gone."_

"But no one was hurt," Trapp tells her. "And in the grand scheme of things, a TV is not the worst thing they could have taken. They could have taken medicine to sell off or all sorts of expensive medical equipment." 

Rose chews her lips. "I suppose you're right, of course. Absolutely, right. It's just this is my first real job out of college, and I have no idea what to do or if it's somehow my fault...."

I catch her uncertain gaze, touching her elbow as I do. "It's not your fault, and I'll guide you through as much of this as I can."

With Rose somewhat mollified, I manage to get a decent preliminary interview out of her, arrange for a follow-up later this wreck, and ask for a complete inventory of the equipment and other valuable items in the office. Then Trapp and I head back outside to the parking lot to find the responding officer. 

"Bewildering," Trapp echoes. "Can you imagine using the world "bewildering" out loud?"

"The diploma over he desk was from Yale." I say a bit distractedly, feeling a short buzz from my phone and looking down to check it. 

Even with the parking lot lights sending a diffused glow over the pavement, the screen is painfully bright after after I tap the notification open. "Maybe she's simply well-spoken. Excuse me, I need to check this for just a minute." 

Trapp stops and politely waits for me to check my latest email. I register a small click of satisfaction when I see it's something I've been waiting for. 

"Boyfriend?" Trapp asks, noticing my pleased facial expression. 

"Crime Analysis," I reply. "Extracted data from the licensee plate readers in the area of the last burglary."

He rolled his eyes. "Kenobi, you seriously need a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend or whatever you preference is these days. You can't fuck extracted data, or at least so I've heard." 

"I'm fine, Nick."

He gives me a mock scowl at the use of her first name. "You seem fine, Rey. Really, really super-duper fine." 

We're angling toward a clump of officers standing next to a patrol car. Even in the dark, they've all got the requisite patrol cup sunglasses propped on their heads, and every last one of item has a gas station coffee cup clutched in one hand-vital medicine for any officer on any shift, day or night. 

"I _am_ fine. I promise." 

He softens going from friendly ribbing to the earnest cop that I met six years ago at the academy. "You know, he would want you to be happy, Rey." he says quietly enough that the uniform can't hear him as we approach. "He wouldn't want you to live like this...married to the job since you couldn't marry him."

My chest tightens uncomfortably. It's been six years since he died, and there's been plenty of therapy and life between then and now---and still her words sting.

I tuck my phone carefully inside my portfolio, swallow, and say, "I'm happy, Nick. Truly." 

It's a lie, but he doesn't press me on it, for which I'm grateful. "Okay," he says. "I just want to see you have a little fun is all. Live a little." 

"I know. And thank you." 

He gives my shoulder a little shove, a playful gesture literally no one else in the department would attempt with me, and then we're to the chattering copes and the conversation is over. The restless itch, however, is back, tickling between my shoulder blades and tugging deep in my belly. Damn him, but Trapp's words have gotten under my skin. Am I lonely? Am I really married to my job and starving myself of happiness?

 _Of course not. How fucking ridiculous that sounds._ But if it's so ridiculous, which this itch? Why this feeling like I'm waiting for something, missing something? Or someone?

"Zimmerman," Trapp calls out. "Some here to talk to you."

One of the uniforms breaks away from the knot of gossiping cops and turns toward us. He's young---very young---no more than twenty-eight or twenty-nine, but he's without all the swagger most cops have at that age. 

And it's obvious he doesn't need it. Serious chocolate-brown eyes stare out from under equally serious brows. A slightly Grecian nose leads to a sculpted mouth currently pressed into a solemn, no-nonsense line only serves to highlight the tempting peaks of his upper lip and the subtle fullness of the lower even more.

His high-and-tight haircut is relaxed just enough that I could run my fingers through the dark thickness at the top but still short enough to show off his uplifted cheekbones and strong jaw. 

And his body---his body is pure sex. Young, vigorous, twenty-something sex. Broad shoulders testing the seams of his uniform arrow down into trim hips neatly circled by a duty belt. His uniform pants cling to hard, athletic thighs, and right below his belt, there's the bulge of a mouthwatering cock at rest.

Oh God, Oh God. I blush, my eyes snapping back up to his face. There's no way he didn't see me giving such an obvious once-over. Except he doesn't look proud or even highly amused---the two reactions I'd expect from a hotshot-looking new rookie. He looks thoughtful. And maybe even a little curious.

"Zimmerman, this is Rey Kenobi. She's the lead detective on these robberies."

"I remember, Sarge," he says. His voice is deep and rough---just like sex with him would be---and at hearing it, something behind my sternum pulls free with enough force to make my lips part on a silent gasp, and heat spills from my chest to my belly to somewhere even lower down.

That itch from earlier is resolving itself into thudding, hot aches everywhere. Everywhere I thought my body had hone quiet over the years.

The tips of my breasts, the neglected bundle of nerves between my legs. My lips and my fingertips and even the skin of my belly, all craving heat and friction. All craving _him._ His combination of strength and power and youth---that thrill of seeing a man so young and virile vibrate with such restrained intensity. Now is when I should speak, when I should take control of the situation again, but I can't trust my voice not to betray the sudden, purring desire currently humming across the surface of my skin.

Instead, I extend a hand for a quick, professional shake. His hand is larger than mine, warm and dry and calloused, and the moment our skin touches, I know it was a mistake.

Electricity sizzles through me, and with his eyes locked on mine as we touch, it's impossible not to imagine that soft brown gaze on me as he pumps between my legs. Staring down at me as I take his heavy cock into my mouth. 

Touching him, no matter how professionally, only drives me to further distraction. "Nice to meet you."

That voice. Even listening to him, no matter how bland the words are, feels like a prurient act--like I shouldn't be doing it in public. Surely everyone around us can see how my skin is catching on fire? How my nipples are beading through my lace bra and silk blouse?

"Nice to meet you," I manage back, praying I sound composed. "I appreciate you making sure I was brought in tonight."

"I read your email," he explains and then says nothing else.

He's a man of few words, I suppose, although there's no mistaking the intensity at which he operates. It's in his extreme focus, the predatory stillness of his form.

In the tension around his mouth and the alert tilts of his head. It's hard to mind either the silence or the intensity when his eyes are shimmering in the hazy radiance of the parking lot lights. They're the kind of eyes that seen to say everything that his mouth won't, and it's near next to impossible to tear myself away when Trapp breaks in and asks me a question.

"Hey, do you need Zimmerman much longer? He's an evening boy, and his shift finished nearly an hour ago."

Right. Shifts. Robberies. Police work. _Focus, Rey. Work the case._

"Only a few more minutes, Nick," I tell him and then turn back to Zimmerman again. "Do you mind going over what you found with me?"

The shade of his head is deliberate, precise. No motion wasted, no emotion betrayed. "No, not at all. Whatever you need."

God, I could listen to that voice say whatever you need every night for the rest of my life. Low in my ear....against the nape of my neck....from between my legs. I curl my fingers around my leather portfolio so hard that I know my knuckles are going opal white. 

"Thank you so much, Officer Zimmerman," I say, and thankfully my voice is as calm and cool as ever. "Can you walk me through what you say when you first pulled up?"

Zimmerman nods but not before his eyes drop to where my hand clenches around the portfolio. I angle myself away from him ever so slightly so that he can't see, and he slowly looks back up at me. I can't read his gaze...and I'm not really all that sure if I want to to be perfectly honestly. Men like Zimmerman, you never know what to expect from them and that alone can be either a good thing or a mistake.

"I arrived about ninety minutes ago---dispatch sent it out as an alarm call," he starts and then proceeds to give me a clear and concise accounting of his arrival and subsequent search. 

I'm impressed with his eye for detail---most rookies don't know what too for on calls like these---and I'm also _very_ impressed with the way he describes his search. Brief and without posturing or flourish. Even my fiancé couldn't resist the occasional showboating back in his time. 

"Thank you," I say when I've finished. "And you're back on duty tomorrow?"

"Yes. At three in the afternoon. I'll have my report to you by five." 

"Don't make her any promises you can't keep," Trapp advices in a half-supervisory, half-cynical tone, and then she turns to me. 

"You'll get it at some point in the next forty-eight."

I make a mental note of that. "Then you're free to go, Officer," I tell him, my eyes dropping one last reluctant time to the hewn, lean length of his body. My little ogle is snagged by the embroidered P. Zimmerman on his uniform shirt. 

"Phillip," he says softly. I quickly glance back up at him. "P is for Phillip but everyone just calls me Flip on the squad."

"Oh," I say and then notice Trapp is narrowing her eyes at me. I clear my throat and offer my hand to him again. "Then thank you, Flip. This has been very helpful." 

And I manage not to shiver when he shakes my hand, a second time, his eyes falling to my mouth. I also manage not to make a disappointed whimper as his skin parts from mine and he turns to leave. 

After he's several paces away, Trapp crosses his arms and squints up at the fingernail-shaped moon. "He's only just graduated from field training a few months ago," he says conversationally. "Very young." 

"He's very adept for someone so young," I say in a neutral tone. 

"Hmm." He makes the noise in a way that lets me know I'm not fooling him in the slightest. "Okay, well, I think we're close to being able to release the scene if you're all good here?"

"I think I got everything I need," I say. "Thanks, Nicki."

He waves me off, reaching down to say something into her radio, and I walk away, trying very hard not to notice the stoic shadow of a certain police officer walking back to his patrol car. I still notice. I make a final round through the scene and then walk back to my bar, portfolio cradled under my arm. I open it up to where I keep my car keys in an inside pocket, and as I'm unlocking the passenger door to set my portfolio in the seat, a patrol car slides into the spot next to me. 

The window rolls down, revealing the startlingly handsome profile of Zimmerman. "I just wanted to make sure you got into your car okay," he says quietly.

I glance around me and then raise an eyebrow. "There are at least seven other cops in this lot. And lest you forget, I'm a cop too."

"That may be, but you don't have your service weapon on you."

"Don't I?" And I'm not exactly sure why I do it, but I can't say my motivation is entirely professional defensiveness.

I pull up the hem of my pencil skirt to show where my small Glock is strapped to my inner thigh, revealing my garters and stockings in the process. I can hear Flip's audible inhale, and when I glance back up at him, his eyes burn with something like fury.

But I'm guessing the strain around his mouth and the way he works his jaw to the side has nothing whatsoever to do with anger. 

"It's a lot safer to carry your gun on your hip," he says tightly. "You allow yourself a smaller risk of the gun unexpectedly going off, resulting in a hurting yourself as well as others around you."

"An expert on gun-control all of a sudden are we, rookie? I'm well aware of the dangers, but I don't like to ruin the lines of my skirt," I say. Yes, I'm that vain, although at the first sign of danger, I would have had my weapon out and ready to go. 

"I did go to training, ma'am," says Flip, his voice showing no sign of amusement. In fact, from her perspective, he was being quite serious. 

I realize I'm still showing off my lingerie when he lets out a low groan. My body responds to his response like he's just touched a match to gasoline, and Trapp's voice echoes loudly in my head: _have a little fun, Kenobi. Be happy._

It's reckless what I'm about to do. Stupid in many ways. I'm never stupid, yet I'm going to do it anyway because _fuck it,_ I want to. 

Hell, maybe I even need to. Maybe my body is so desperate for friction and release that it could have been any man who crossed my path tonight. But I don't necessarily think that's true. It's something about this too-young-too-smart-ass rookie, with his earnest seriousness and intense eyes. With that body that practically thrums with strength. 

Every part of it is wrong, even for a woman like me, professional, maybe even for an officer of the law, yet I still lean down to his window and say, "My address is fifty-one thirty-seven Jakku Avenue. The door will be unlocked if you're interested." 

And without waiting for his response, I walk around tot he driver's side of my car and leave. 


	3. Chapter 3

FLIP ZIMMERMAN

An hour later I'm in the station, staring down at my open locker as if it has all the answers to all of my questions. Sadly, it doesn't. Fifty-one thirty-even Jakku Avenue. The door will be unlocked if you're interested. 

My cock, which has been pushing right up against my zipper ever since she flashed me that impossibly sexy combination of gun and garter-belt, is hot and throbbing at the very idea of me going to her house. It's swollen and proud at the pleasure of being picked. 

My cock wants me to go. Hell, who am I kidding here? All of me wants to go, if I'm being perfectly honest here. 

Being interviewed by her did nothing whatsoever to diminish my slow but growing fascination with her---a fascination that felt more and more possessive as our conversation went on. The more her hazel eyes flicked over me in that sweet, endearingly unchaste sort of way. The hauntingly sexy arch of her eyebrow as she listened to every word I said. 

The inadvertent pout of her mouth as she took down notes. The flare of ownership I began to feel was so incredibly powerful, so urgent, that I could barely breathe. 

I didn't even care that she was older than me---okay, so by like a year or two, big deal, or that we had just met, that while technically permissible, fraternization within rank was still very much frowned upon. She _was_ mine. _All....fucking....mine._ My ice queen who would thaw only for me underneath my fiery heat. 

Except now as I'm changing out of my uniform, hanging up my duty belt in my locker and lacing up my civvy boots, I'm plagued by endless questions.

Is this something she does to officers often? Am I not the first young unattached rookie officer to be picked for something like this? Am I just imaging her attraction to me? My reaction towards her? And do anything of these questions actually matter in the first place? It's a spontaneous lay with no promise of more. A single, near-strangely fuck an then a sincere, genuinely friendly parting of ways.

For all that I know, I'll be pushed pout out the door with a wet limp dick and one of those small, enigmatic smiles, only never to see her again.

I nearly growl at the thought of that prospect. I don't want a single fuck with Rey Kenobi. I don't know what I _do_ want, but I know this thing stretching and flexing to life inside me won't be satisfied with only tonight. 

I'm going to need more. No, I'm going to need a lot more than this....from her....I _want_ more. Grabbing my keys from my locker, I slam the door with a feral growl, desperate to get to Rey's house as quickly as possible for my sanity---and because my cock can't take the thought of not being inside her any longer. 

And before I realize it, I'm typing in her address into my GPS system and speeding--- _me_ , a fucking cop, speeding like a bat straight out of hell.

I've never been like this for any woman, but, then again it has been at least six months since I've had what I would call _really_ good sex. My cock instantly twitches and I have to adjust myself not once, but twice as I make the speedy driver on the high-way, turning whichever way---nearly missing a turn until I finally pull up to her house. 

It's small but yet still quite spacious; perfect for a young beautiful woman one living alone. Turning off the ignition to my Jeep, I hastily walk up to the side door and find that it's unlocked just like she said it would be---but I'm a little annoying that someone with a thorough knowledge of criminal activity, and who is a woman of-the-law would do something so reckless and stupid as to keep her house unlocked just for any stranger to just waltz in whenever they liked. 

No lights are on which immediately tells me that Rey is not home yet. What the hell was she thinking?! I mutter to myself as I settle into the den, my thumbs tapping my thighs in a very agitated way. I'm both angry and amazed that she would do something like this.

I'm feeling the need to fuck her thoroughly and give her a good spanking for this inexcusable behavior. I decide to wait for her in the kitchen and it isn't too long before I see the brilliant flash of headlights pulling up the driveway.

Lust and rage channel through me as I see her exiting her vehicle, grabbing her jacket and purse from the passenger side. She thinks she can just torment me in this way, does she? We'll fucking see about that!


	4. Chapter 4

REY KENOBI

I'm shaking as I walk into my house. Wild doubts and frenetic surges of panic tumble around inside of my mind as I lock up my duty weapon and put my badge and my notes away on the island bar counter. What the hell am I doing? Have I lost my fucking mind?

Yes, I must have. And will he come? What if he does? Or worse....what if he does? I pace around the house, turn on some modern cello music, and pour myself a large glass of white wine. It's been over three years since I've screwed someone, and even that barely counted because it was the tentative and all-to-sweet fuck of a successful of a date. 

The man had treated me like a fragile china doll---like I'd cracked at the first sign of rough handling---and I didn't even come once.

It was rather embarrassing for both of us afterwards. After that, I found excuses to avoid dates. So for three years it's just been and a small collection of carefully curated toys, and the very idea of letting a man back inside my body has me more excited--and more terrified---than I even thought was possible. What If I've forgotten how to be good at it? At sex, I mean?

What if it's as disappointing as the last time I invited someone into my bed? What if---oh, and this is a big one---what if this handsome young man doesn't like my definitely soiled body?

Not that there's anything wrong with my body, I work out more than the average woman of my age probably should. Stamina. You have to have it in my line of work to survive. Worried, I drink more wine and wander back to the front door, debating on whether or not to leave it locked. 

Maybe I should. Maybe I should call this entire impulsive preposterous thing off. I'll just leave him a note on the door telling him as much and spare us both our pride. 

But dammit, I don't want to. Every single time I conjure up an image of Flip Zimmerman---chocolate brown eyes and that young, vigorous body of his---my own body sizzles with an unmet need. And as nervous as I am, I'm quite certain that if I don't do this, I'll regret it for the rest of my life. No, I want this. I'm doing it. No matter how embarrassed I'll be in the morning. I unlock the door. 

I'm still dressed, though, and as I finish my wine and set the glass down on the counter, I wonder if I should probably change---if I should strip down or don something a bit more overtly sexy.

Hell, I'm still in my heels, even Still Detective Dry Clean Only. With a sigh, I decided to change, but as I walk out of my kitchen, I feel it. The distinctive prickle at the back of my neck telling me that I'm suddenly....not...alone. I look up into the window across the breakfast nook and see Flip in the reflection, standing at a careful distance behind me. I'm rather impressed with how silently he had entered my house; I'm not that easy to sneak up on.

Even in the reflection---and superimposed over my dark, private backyard--he looks painfully well-built, with the curves of his broad shoulders and arms pushing at his buffalo plaid shirt and his jeans showing off his narrow, perfect hips.

His chiseled features are still set in that stern, ultra0serious expression that I found so compelling earlier, but not there's something else behind that solemnity. Something much darker. More primal. 

Neither one of us says a word, as if we both know that speaking will somehow dilute whatever this thing is between us. This assignation. This mystifying and growing attraction between us. So instead, I give him a steady, almost regal nod, like a queen to her young and faithful knight, and he understands immediately, a slow ripple of dangerous lust coursing visibly through him.

He strides forward like a proud conqueror, and before I can turn to meet him, he has his hand flat between my shoulder blades and he's bending me over the table.

I bend, all the blood in my body pooling in my cunt. "Flip," I say.

He says nothing in reply but yanks my pencil skirt up to my hips and lets the cool air of the room caress my panty-covered ass. Still silent, his hands find the tops of my stockings and then move to stroke the lines of my garters,

I can't help the moan that escapes me once his fingertips trace up the curve of my ass. Or the second moan when he slides a finger under the edge of my panties and explores the needy kiss of my pussy. He then removes the finger and gives me a hard cup, letting me feel the unraveling threads of his control. Letting me feel just how rough he wants to be.

And the ensuing shove and grind of his denim-covered erection against my ass almost feels like an indictment, like he's accusing me of something. I roll my face into the wood surface of the table and shudder.

I like it all way too much. Have I ever felt like this before? Like a present being unwrapped? Like being both the rest and worst thing to happen to a man?

And how does someone so young know how to fuck like this? My panties are then torn off---just torn right off my hips without so much as a by-your-leave---and Flip gives my high-heeled foot a vicious kick with his heavy-boots. It spreads my legs apart, like he's searching me, frisking me, and the thought of that is just so wrong and dirty that I whimper into the table.

A long finger makes an approving circle of my now exposed cunt and then penetrates me in an unhurried but persistent slide. I arch, which earns me another finger and a pleased grunt from him.

He gives me a few lazy pumps, paying extra special attention to the textured spot inside that sends frissons of electric sensation everywhere through my body, but just when I'm really starting to get wet, truly squirmy, he withdraws his hand. 

When I look up at the window, I see him staring back at me with darkened, unknowable eyes. He has his fingers in his mouth, and he's sucking my taste right off of them.

"Oh, God," I whisper. "Oh God." 

What the hell have I gotten myself into with him? A small, barely there quirk of his lips makes me think he can read my every thought. And the next thing he does it just as carnal, just as vulgar. He unzips his jeans, pulls out his naked cock, and then let's it drop right onto the top of my ass. 

A heavy, marking weight that immediately tells me I wasn't wrong earlier about that superlative bulge in his uniform pants. Without a word, he extracts a condom from his back pocket and tears it open with his teeth---a move I find completely animalistically almost violently, sexual---and then rolls the sheath down over his turgid length. 

I'm grateful for the condom, really, I am. But at the same time, I almost regret it. I almost wished he'd just penetrate me without one---which is patently nonsensical, as I have no doubt a man like Flip Zimmerman is fucking his way through the greater Colorado Springs area.

Most cops his age are, which is one of the reasons that I've refused to date any of them after my fiancé's death. But Flip has bulldozed past all my usual, prudent precautions. 

Slightly younger man---okay, by a year or so. Fellow cop. And apparently he's even bulldozed past my common sense area about casual sex and protection, God, I'm so fucked in the head. I can feel the scorching heat of his tip even through the latex as he lazily maps the hollows and folds of my flesh, making everything wet and ready for his invasion. Then he invades.... _brutally._

The spread of his wide crown into that long-untouched place makes my breath stutter and my fingertips curl against the wood, and he's relentless with it, driving in and in and in, tunneling through my tight, squeezing flesh. He pulls back to the crown, and with a hard hand on my hips and a low grunt, he pierces me all the way in.

He stays just like that for a long moment, my body flush against his hips and his free hand smoothing over the strappy bits of garter belt on my bottom and the rucked-up fabric of my skirt.

I can't imagine how wanton I look like this, how debauched, my skirt shoved up and my cunt completely stretched out to the max---and all of it without foreplay or an inaugural kiss. Without even a word. I'm so turned on by it all that I think I'll scream if he doesn't start moving soon. I'm shorter than him by a significant amount, even in the steep Colorado Springs, and he nudges my feet back together with him still inside in order to get me at the angle he wants.

And then he starts to fuck. With each pull out to the tip is a thrill of friction, and each shove back in is a seat of pressure and molten heat.

He fucks me unapologetically, thoroughly, shoving and driving me inward until I can swear the end of his cock is somewhere in my chest region, his hands fisting in the expensive fabric of my skirt to bring me back against him harder, faster. 

I look up at the window again just to see him---just to see that tall, study body at work---and find him looking at the same thing. Watching us, still clothed, bucking and sweaty.

Two cops seeking a desperate, dirty cure for an ancient ache. His face like this is spell bounding---his dark brows are drawn together in focus and his full mouth is pressed into a solemn line, and he doesn't look like a predator who's been caught his prey....at last. 

He doesn't look like a victorious make who's managed to pin a mate. Not yet. I'm not sure what else he wants until his hand gives my ass a quick _crack_ and then just as quickly finds my clit. Then I know. He wants more from me. He _wants_ me wild. He _wants_ me to cum. 

I arch, I purr, I twist--his fingers are expert and sure, and they know exactly how to work my flesh, exactly how to circle and press and rub. He watches me carefully in the window, studying my face, and I realize he's learning what I like, gauging my reactions to what he does to my body. 

So he sees the frustrated pout when he touches me gently, the ecstatic gasp when he gets rough again and demands a response from my body. I'm spanked and I let out laughs of surprised pleasure because who knew that could feel so damn good? So naughty and invigorating, the contrast of the sparkling pain only serving to highlight the pleasure that I'm feeling around his thick erection and under his skillful fingers? 

And there's more, so much more. My nipples are plucked and rolled through my blouse and bra. My hair is wound in his fist and pulled and yanked. My asshole is pressed and played with---with ownership with male prerogative, as if he has no doubt that he has ever single right to it. 

There's certainly no china doll treatment with Flip Zimmerman. None at all, and I'm completely on fire with how much I love it.

My orgasm comes with three years of need roaring behind it---more, _five_ years of need, five years since I've been properly fucked, and even then it still hasn't like this. It still wasn't as dirty or as hard or as fundamental. 

_This_ is how I need to be fucked---how I've always needed to be fucked---and I never even knew. I never knew until this one-night stand with a young man I have absolutely no right taking to bed. Bed....island bard. Whatever. 

With a sobbed moan, I feel the orgasm catch fire around the buried tip of his cock, starting in my belly and yanking at my clit and flickering across every single nerve ending I have. He sucks in a breath as the contractions grip his erection, as if my body is trying to milk the cum right up his shaft and into my body, and then he lets loose. Truly lets loose. His cock swells bigger and harder than ever, and his hips hammer into the curves of my bottom as if he's trying to wedge his way inside. 

I know he wants to cum, I know he wants to pump his condom full, and knowing that is enough to set off a second, yet even stronger orgasm inside of me. 

I let out a soft wail, writhing and kicking my feet as his relentless fucking pins me to the island bar, and it's too much, it's all too much for me. I can't handle the sensory overload of being screwed so ferociously through it all. 

I wail and kick, and he grunts and keeps thrusting, and then he lays his upper body over mine, wraps his hand around my throat, and spears me harder than ever, going so deep that I can feel the hair below his naval tickling my ass and the zipper of his jeans biting the tender skin of my thighs. 

In the near silence he cums, with only a ragged groan in that first exquisite throb to let me know his control is has also been shaken, and the scalding heat of his seed is palpable even through the latex condom. His erection flexes and pulses inside me, doing the job it was made for, and I love the feeling of it so much that I tuck my cheek against my shoulder so he can't see the delirious grin on my face.

God, I'd forgotten. Forgotten everything, really, but mostly of just how good it felt to have someone releasing inside me, filling me with heat as their body jerked in pleasure.

He stays bent over me even after his cock goes still, and he brushes the hair away from my ear so he can ghost his perfect cherry-red lips over it's shell. And for a minute, I think he's going to kiss me. Going to shatter the potent fantasy of this magical encounter with some banal thank you or how was it for you? sort of thing. 

But I underestimate him. "Don't you ever, and I mean, _ever_ leave your fucking door unlocked again," he whispers in a raspy voice against my ear. "Do you understand me? Ever fucking again."

Without waiting for a response, he pulls out and steps away, leaving my entire body wet and empty and cold. I hear the clang of the kitchen trash can lid as he throws the condom away, and the purr of his zipper, and then his footsteps to the front door. It then opens.

"I'll see you around, I suppose, Rey," he says.

I then hear the pointed, deliberate sound of the lock turning and then door closing behind him. Flip is gone, having just left me bruised and flushed and happy---and safer than how he had first found me. Sure, the ending was a bit harsh....but he wasn't wrong in that area as he had so politely put it, smacking my bare ass as a final reminder. Break-ins have been our specialty lately and he didn't want me to end up on another one of our victim's lists.

So I stay bent over that island bar for much longer than was necessary, smiling into the wood because that unsettled itch from earlier is finally, finally, after so long scratched. 


	5. Chapter 5

FLIP ZIMMERMAN

I'm edgy as hell as I walk into the station the next morning. I had barely slept, could hardly eat this morning, and even the usual grind of weights and cardio at the gym wasn't enough to sharpen my focus. All I could think about was her. Rey. Rey Kenobi.

She was catlike indeed last night, all purrs and sinuous needy arches. I began to wonder if she bites like one too. I wonder if she uses those kitten claws of her to scratch. I honestly think that I might die if I don't find out...soon.

The problem is that I'm not even really all that sure if I'll have the chance---and even I can see the irony of that, because ever since I've come home to Colorado Springs, I haven't exactly been a "find out more" kind of guy. I had left the army, expecting to marry my high-school sweetheart, only to come back home to find that she'd been sweethearting plenty of other guys while I was away. It hurt less than it should have, and I think we'd been nothing more than friends with benefits for a while.

But it still made me wary of anything lasting longer than a couple of hours. Once bitten and all that bullshit. Except now, I realize, I want more than just a couple of hours with Rey.

I want much, much more and it was only respect for what I thought she needed from our previous encounter last night that made me leave. I wasn't going to force myself on her for longer if she all she wanted was a nice little fuck to finish off her day.

Not that our fuck was _nice_ or _little_ to be honest. I had been... _.quite._...brutal with her. My dick swells as I remember how rough my ice queen wanted it. How she moaned as I pulled on her hair and spanked her prefect peach-ass. How fucking sexy and sluttish she looked with that prim pencil skirt over her ass and her pricy garters framing her cunt. 

I get to the locker room and lean against my locker, my mind crammed full of last night's debauchery, my body literally aching with the memory of it all. What is it about her that just....enthralls me like this? 

She wasn't that much older than me anyways? Was it the elegance? The mystery? Was it the bewitching discovery that if you bent her over a island bar, all that good breeding disappeared? I'm not sure. It's all of it combined, maybe. All of it plus seeing her at work last night, so fearless and intelligent and methodical. Knowing that her slender, wanton body came paired with steel resolve and a sharp mind. 

I'm still chewing over this as I get to roll call and take a chair. Trapp goes over the normal beginning of shift stuff---traffic assignments for the afternoon, new slides from vice about a drug ring further up north---and then swivels his chair towards me.

"Investigations is asking for a uniform to help out with the television robberies. I openly volunteered you, Zimmerman."

I'm only half paying attention, my thoughts still fixated on a certain brunette detective. "Pardon me, Sarge?"

"Turns out you did a pretty good job last night, rookie," Trapp says honestly, and it's one of the things I like best about him. He's fair, and while he doesn't effusively praise his squad the way some sergeants do, he consistently recognizes good work whenever he sees it. "I was impressed, and Captain Bridges over investigations was impressed as week, We both agreed that you'd be a good fit to help Kenobi with some of the investigation grunt work."

Hearing her name out loud is like receiving a shot of adrenaline. I sit up a little straighter, alert. "I'd be working with Detective Kenobi?"

Trap tilts his head at me. "Yeah. That's what I said, rookie. Is that a problem?"

It's quite literally the furthest fucking thing in the world from a problem. "No, of course not, sir. Do I need to change shifts?"

"You'll be working whatever they tell you to work," Trapp says. "You're temporarily assigned to Kenobi's sergeant and Kenobi's squad. I imagine you'll be working some days, some overnights, that kind of thing. Will that work for you?"

I honestly have no life outside of this job except for the gym and playing with my niece and nephew. And I'm to the point now where I'd happily donate an organ if it meant that I could see Kenobi again. I then give Trapp an affirmative nod.

"All right. Then get your rookie butt down to investigations and report immediately to Kenobi."

"Yes, sir." 

********

In the history of the CSPD, no one has hauled ass to the investigations station as quickly as I do now, and I test more than a few speed limits as I try my hardest to get there before Kenobi even clocks out. I park the car and practically jog my way into the building.

I search out the investigations sergeant for a quick check in and to verify whom I need to report to for the evening portion of the shift, and then I'm free to find her. I can admit it now, as I'm stalking through the maze of cubicles to find hers. I can admit how badly I want to fuck her again.

How much I hated walking away from her last night, how my stomached twisted all night long at the thought that she might think badly of me, that she was displeased or unimpressed with what happened between us. I want very much for her to be pleased. To be impressed with me. I knew all of this earlier, of course, but it's only now as I'm eating up the space between us that I acknowledge the implication.

I want her to be mine. At least, one more time. Rey's cubicle is tucked away in a far corner, and it's larger than most. A subtle indication of her rank and position within the unit. 

A little digging this morning while Creek and I were at the station gym netted me the information that Rey is the lead person detective and usually takes point on the city's homicides, when we have them---which is rarely---working assaults, batteries, and stalking the rest of the time. 

She has the highest case clearance rate of any other detective in her unit and has for several years. She did a stint with the KBI-CSPD loaned her out for that one---and frequently gets called in by other agencies to help with difficult cases. 

The "frigid bitch" Stallworth was talking about is possibly the best cop in the entire department---and manages to be the best without fanfare or arrogance. 

And she surrendered all that intelligence and discipline into my hands last night. The significance of that is potent. Intoxicating. 

Stallworth made it sound as if Captain Bridges had decided to put me on the burglary case, but I can't help but hope that Kenobi had secretly asked for me....personally. That she had liked my performance---both at the scene and in her kitchen---enough to trust me with her presence again. I want her to trust me. I want it as directly and forcefully as I've wanted anything else that matters.

And now I'm thinking about wanting her in the noisy, fluorescent bullpen. _Get it under fucking control, Zimmerman._

I'm always professional and respectfully subordinate---a gift from my time in the army days--but even walking up to her cubicle has my cock thick and my blood running hot. My heart is in my throat like I'm a teenage boy about to ask a girl out to his first dance, and I'm itching just to _see_ her, just to be _close_ to her. 

Except when I finally get to her, she's not alone. A man, probably just on the young side of thirty, is stand in the cubicle opening with an elbow propped on the chest-high wall and one dress-showed foot crossed behind the other.

He's in a tailored blue suit, the kind that probably costs as much as I make in a month, and it showcases an impressively fit body. There's no wedding ring on his hand, and he's leaning in to talk to Rey in a familiar manner that makes me want to smash something---mostly his face. When I get to the cubicle entry myself, I can see Rey sitting in her chair, looking radiant in that tasteful way of hers and laughing at something he's just said. I hate him immediately. 

Her hazel eyes slide over me and widen, and for a moment I see desire flashing in those sparkling depths---but as soon as I see it, it's gone, and she's the aloof ice-cold queen once more.

"Zimmerman," she says calmly. "What brings you to this station?"

Ah, so she didn't know that I was coming. Which means that she didn't ask foe me after all. Well, shit, I find myself crushed by that sudden realization.

Pushing down my disappointment, I reply, "Trapp's lending me out to you. It's gone through Chief Bridges and everything, so....I'm at your complete disposal. Starting...now."

I feel a rush of male satisfaction as my subtext sends pink blooming alone her perfect cheekbones. "How nice of him to let me know," she murmurs, her hazel-green colored eyes dropping down to her shoes.

She takes a deep breath, and when she looks back up at me, she seems to have control of herself again. I love that about her, but I can't help but wish that she'd been a little bit more excited about it to be honest.

"Zimmerman, have you met our new assistant district attorney, Armitage Hux? He used to be one of the best defense lawyers in town before he moved away a few years ago, but now he's back and fighting for the side of good." She gives him a quick, teasing grin with her last statement, and I suddenly hate him even more.

Hux laughs. "Good is subjective. You know that, Rey."

She makes a face. "Maybe in criminal defense, but you were getting doctors and rich kids out of DUIs, Hux. Not exactly a hero's face."

"But you admit, I _was_ pretty good at it." He grins and then turns to me, extending a hand to him.

He's good-looking, damn him, in a WASPy way. Medium height, ginger-red hair, and a fucking cleft in his chin. His fine-boned face and expensive haircut made me think he's known wealth long before defending assholes for lots of money. 

"Nice to meet you, Officer Zimmerman," Hux says easily. 

It takes ever ounce of self-control I have to shake his hand. "Likewise," I lie.

Rey stands, smoothing down her skirt as she does. It's yet another pencil skirt, dark gray this time, and I nearly need to excuse myself after thinking about how good it would looked shoved up to her waist. She seems to have the exact same thought, because her hands shake as she smooths the fabric again and she's can't look me in the face for more than a few seconds at a time. 

"Hux is the ADA who will handle most of the medium-level persons crimes moving forward, so he was just in to talk to Bridges."

"Well, and to catch up with you, of course, Rey," Hux interjects.

He calls her Rey. I don't fucking like that. Not at all. And I like it even less when he catches her hand and gives it a quick firm squeeze. Jealousy flares through me so bot and fast that I think it just might erupt like Mt. St. Helens at any moment, because how dare he touch her in like that in front of me? 

_Stop it,_ my conscious warns. _She's not yours, Zimmerman._ For her part, Rey seems as surprised by the hand squeeze as I'm not. Any idiot can tell that this Hux is interested in her, that he wants her. 

It's all over his body language, in the gaze that can't stop dropping to her tits and tracing the subtle curve her pussy makes against her tight skirt. He wants her, and worse---I think there's some history here. When he finally let's go of her hand, it's with the satisfaction of someone reclaiming lost territory. 

"I sincerely hope that you don't mind if I give you a call?" he asks, touching her elbow now. 

I nearly deck him right where he stands. 

********

Her eyes dart to me, her mouth pursed in a moue that I'm beginning to recognize as her thinking face. "Well, I suppose that would be okay," she says hesitantly, and something inside me dies a little bit. 

It's impossible not to notice how good they look together. Not to notice he's got the same elegant, well-bred features she does. The same expensive taste in clothes. They're the same age, bred from the same cloth, and have the same precision of speech and bearing. 

Compared to him, I feel young and dumb and broke as hell. A blunt, inexperienced instrument. A big, strong body to ride and then forget about the next day. 

I take a step back as he gives her a winning smile and then turns that smile on me. I don't think I'm imagining the glint of victory in his stare as he holds out a hand for me to shake again. Nor the trace of smugness in his voice when he says, "Officer Zimmerman."

I shake his hand, letting my nod be my only response and the final word in the story between Hux and Zimmerman. 

"I'll talk to you later, Rey," he says, the words laden with meaning, and then he leaves.

And I'm not sure what I feel, except jealous and possessive and maybe the tiniest bit insecure. Especially looking at Rey, now leaning over her desk to get her portfolio, her dark-chestnut hair swinging in soft, coiffed waves, one delicate high heeled kicked back for balance.

She looks like perfection. Like the kind of woman who should be with a hotshot lawyer, pampered and taken to restaurants I've never even heard of--and wouldn't be able to pronounce their names even if I had. Hux is the right kind of man for her. Not me. But I don't think I really care at this point. I don't care because I may not be rich, but I've known rich men and I know how they think.

I know exactly how Hux sees Rey. She's a shiny, beautiful thing to him, like a sleek sports car glinting in the lot, and once he acquires her, he'll want her off the streets.

He'll want her sitting at home, safe and gathering dust, until he sees fit to take her out and show her off to all his playboy buddies at the country club. I don't care because even though I barely know her, I can see a life like that would make her miserable.

She can't be fettered down to play housewife, leaving only to be gala army candy. She needs to be handled according to her strength---used and adored in equal measure--and she needs someone who doesn't want to change a single fucking thing about her. Not her job or her drive or anything. She's perfect just the way she is....at least she is to me, that is. 

And I don't care because I felt her body against mine last night. I heard her fingernails against the wood and her soft, euphoric moans as she came over and over again. 

I saw her quiver as I spanked her and pulled on her hair. I felt her get wetter and wetter as I kicked her legs apart and played with her asshole. There's no way in hell Hux would be able to give her what she needs. And I can. Maybe it's as simple as that. No, Zimmerman, it _is_ as simple as that. 

But as Rey straightens up, she gives me one of those thoughtful half pouts, and says, "Okay, Zimmerman, what am I going to do with you?"

 _Oh, trust me, I could think of several things you could do with me,_ Kenobi, my subconscious smirks sensually. _Starting with you getting down on your knees and sucking my cock would be one, the other things would follow in pursuit._

I worry that it's not going to be simple at all. Things are already complicated between us as it is and I foresee it getting murkier and murkier with each second that passes by. 


	6. Chapter 6

REY KENOBI

The sight of Flip standing in front of the stunned me so much that I don't know how I fumbled my way through the rest of the conversation with Hux. There I was, praying Hux couldn't tell how gingerly I was sitting on my office chair because I'd been reamed to heaven and back by a gorgeous man who'd been a baby while I was in high school, and then Flip just appeared, as if my tender cunt had summoned him into existence. 

The difference between Flip and Hux was beyond startling. Next to the raw, potent presence of Flip in uniform, Hux looked like a photocopy of a Brooks Brothers ad.

Where Flip was hard and lean from PT in the desert, Hux had the sort of self-conscious physique that came from paying a trainer a lot of money. And where Flip's almost-rugged features are pulled into a look of stern detachment. 

Hux was all genteel symmetry and practiced smiles. I've never felt that Hux was _unattractive_ before now, but with Flip next to him...Flip might as well have been the only man on earth as fat as my body was concerned. The sheer power radiating from his wide shoulders and crossed arms wide, booted stance was enough to make me embarrassingly, shamefully wet.

I stood up before I left a damp spot on my skirt. "Okay, Zimmerman, what am I going to do with you?" I glance down the bullpen, relieved to see that no one is watching the Ice Queen blush over a rookie, and then I glance toward the door as I think.

I have a few follow-ups that I need to do, and I could probably task some of those to Flip, but if I'm being honest, I'm not exactly one-hundred perfect ready for us to part ways just yet.

It feels like some kind of bizarre gift from the universe that he's here at all. One of those coincidences that I'm in danger o making too much of, when I should just be grateful for the extra help. Especially when that help is as capable and competent as Flip Zimmerman. 

The thought grounds me in the here and now. Back to reality and the case. With a deep breath, I slowly turn to him and force myself to be nothing more than professional. At least in my words, if I can't be in my own thoughts. 

"I really think it's best if we go through the evidence together, make sure that you know everything I do," I say. "Bridge's give me the meeting room across the hall as a base camp, so let's start from there." 

I gesture to the meeting room in question, but Flip doesn't look where I indicate. Instead, he gives me a slow, heated once-over that makes my belly clench.

"I'm happy to start wherever you are," he says after a minute, with just the barest hint of an eyebrow raise to underscore that he's not only talking about the case, and then he turns and walks to the meeting with the confident stride of a man who's been to war.

It's that presence that seals the deal for me, I decide as I follow him of the little hallway made by my cubicle and the meeting room. With his kissable lips and long eyelashes, he could very easily be too handsome to ne powerful, but there's something about those dark eyes of his and the low voice and the authority he exudes simply by standing firmly in place.

It's what makes him look like a cop and not like an actor who plays a cop on TV. He opens the door to the meeting room and flicks on the light, and I can't help it. I really just can't. 

It's these fucking uniform pants and how they display the molded, muscled curve of his ass. I look. No, more like I _gawk_. Like a damn school-girl after the cute boy, I gawk. And then I suddenly remember---we can't do this... _.here._

_Stop it, Rey. This just cannot happen, it can't. It....cannot....happen._

There's a million reasons why I can't fuck Flip Zimmerman again. In our department, officers and detectives share the same rank, and fraternization is allowed within rank, but it's still wildly unprofessional....even more so now that he's been assigned to my case. 

We might be the same age, but technically, he works...for me. A twenty-nine year old cop with a giant cock and flat abs? I have no doubt there's a bevy of badge bunnies with limber, nubile bodies waiting to crawl into his lap face first and that he probably went home so fast and fucking me because had no desire to fuck me ever again. 

Why would he want to fuck me when there's probably an infinite supply and emotionally available eager twenty-somethings waiting to fall into his bed? The thought is depressing. 

But I'm not in the habit of allowing myself self-pity and never have been, even after my fiancé's death. I enjoyed last night, and I refuse to regret it. Even if it's time to get back to real life now. And I'm all ready for real life, for the contained control I normally enjoy, just as soon as I'm done looking at Zimmerman's ass. Which I am. I definitely am done looking--okay, maybe one more peek---

Flip turns faster than I anticipate, and there can be no doubt he catches me looking. His usual brooding scowl gets scowlier. Which is totally fair.

There's no doubt it's improper to be caught ogling your younger coworker's ass, even if you did fuck him the night before. But I can't pretend shame. I can't pretend there isn't a tiny part of me that feels entitled to look. 

I tilt my head and allow him a little smile. _Yes, okay, fine, you caught me. I looked...._ He then kicks the door shut, and in a heartbeat I'm pushed against the wall and trapped between his hands planted on either side of my head as my phone and portfolio tumble to the floor. I'm caged in by two-hundred pounds of angry all alpha male muscle, but I haven't been afraid of big, grumpy cops since I started the academy---and anyway, my body associates all this intensity and closeness from Flip with something close to danger but much, much more fun. 

"You're looking at me like you want to be bent over a table again," he says in a silky voice.

"Maybe."

He glances down at my nipples, erect and making themselves known against the thin fabric of my silk blouse. "So? Is that for me?"

"Who else would it be for?"

"Hux."

I make a dismissive noise, and my cop narrows his eyes. "You know he wants to fuck you, right?" he growls. "It's all over his face."

"And?"

"And I don't fucking like it."

I lift an eyebrow at this statement. "I honestly don't see how that's any of your business."

More scowling comes from his end. "Still. He's a _fucking_ asshole and I still don't fucking like it." 

It's so churlish, so very male of him, that I have to laugh a little, and his gaze snags on my smiling mouth and goes from angry to something different. Something....greedy. "He's not an asshole," I say. "He's very nice. Even if he were an asshole, however, it still wouldn't be any of your business."

"So you've fucked him," the sulky rookie says. "Haven't you?"

There's no point in lying, not when Flip and I are as little to each other as Hux and I are. Or at least as little as Flip and I _should_ be to each other that is. "It happens three years ago. One date. He ended up moving right after to be closer to his kids, and that was the end of it."

"Except he's back now," Flip points out. "And he clearly wants to pick up right where you two left off."

"I'm reiterating again that this is none of your business." 

"That's just it, I'm _making_ it my business."

*********

Not that Flip is wrong. I think Hux would very much like to pick up where we left off things, I've thought about it. Thought about how long the nights are getting, how my house seems to feel emptier and emptier and emptier. I never cared too much about becoming an old spinster lady---I've even railed against the label as patriarchal bullshit--but though I don't feel desperate to marry or start a family, I do feel....lonely.

And wouldn't Hux be an easy solution? He already has two lovely daughters, so if we had children, it would be because we wanted them, not because we felt middle age bearing down on us. 

And we run in the same circles, share many of the same friends. It makes perfect sense. In contrast, Flip makes no sense. He's the opposite of the pro-Hux list. Too young to settle down, and I bet too wild too. 

Just like my previous fiancé at that age, working hard, playing hard--drinks and girls and dangers. There's no easy security when it comes to Flip, no clear path to a future. So why am I so uninterested in Hux? And why am I so inexorably drawn to the young rookie cop instead? 

I look up into Flip's stern face. "Why do you care?"

It's the wrong thing to say. It betrays too much of my own conflicted desires, and Flip, like any good predator, smells my weakness.

"Do you want me to care?" he asks, his voice turning low and rough.

He's visibly shaking with restraint now, his hands balled into fists on either side of me, his pulse thrumming fast in his neck. Every long, diamond-cute inch of his body is desperate to press against mine; I don't have to look down to know he's hard as a rock.

His jaw is tense, rigid, a small muscle jumping along it. He looks like he wants to fuck me right the the damn wall. God, this is sexy. It's all so fucking sexy. My composure is completely gone. My control is shot to hell. There's only him, smelling like leather and the barest hint of tea tree oil. Rugged and clean. I lean forward and run my nose along the edge of his jaw to smell it better.

He instantly freezes. His jaw is clean-shaven, but that five o'clock shadow is begging to make itself known--just a hint of rapsiness over his warm, sculpted jaw. 

It tickles against my nose, and his nose scent is even stronger like this. If the Yankee Candle store sold a candle that smelled just like Flip, women would stop going on dates altogether. "Rey," he rumbles in warning.

This growling version of Flip is going to be the death of my panties. I rub my chest against his hard, body-armored one and smile into his neck. He lets out a long breath. A "ah, now I see" breath. 

"Do you like me being jealous of him?" His hand drops from beside my head and slowly, deliberately palms my cunt through my skirt. "Do you like it when I'm possessive of you?"

My head drops back against the wall as my hips push against his touch. Pleasure curls, dark and smoky, through my belly and chest, and I know the answer before I admit it aloud. "Yes....I-I do."

"Ah, _you_ do." He says it matter-of-factly, in this almost arrogant way that leaves no room for doubt. 

I do like it. He did know. He reaches over with his free hand and locks the meeting room door, and for the first time, I appreciate how isolated it is. Near nothing else except my cubicle, with no internal windows or shared doors. And when Flip flicks off the light, leaving only the afternoon sunlight straining against the metal blinds of the exterior window, I know we're essentially hidden here. 

As long as we stay silent, no one need ever know. Oh, this is such a bad idea. But it doesn't stop me from rocking my cunt against Flip's peremptory touch. 

"Tell me," he says, leaning close and ghosting his mouth over my jaw. "Did he fuck you right? Did he make that little pussy of your happy?"

My eyelids flutter at his dirty work, even as the sensible part of my mind rears up to scream _it's none of your damn business!_ I shouldn't betray poor Hux's ego this way. I shouldn't. But then Flip presses hard enough to make me moan, and I think maybe I don't care and that I'll tell him anything to keep this jealous, ravenous side of him around. 

"Did he?" he demands again, impatient with my silence, curling his fingers to catch my clit with even more pressure. 

"No," I relent in a whimper. "No, he didn't."

Flip nods to himself, as if confirming knowledge he already had. "He was too gentle with you, wasn't he? He tried to fuck you easy and sweet?"

His fingers are now at the hem of my skirt, dragging it up slowly to my waist. I'm squirming to get his touch back where I need it, back where I'm wet and aching, back where only he can soothe me.

"Too bad he didn't know there isn't anything easy about you," Flip says, one hand pushing my panties aside and the other hand fisting in my hair. He makes me watch as he pushes his fingers inside me and fucks me with them. "Too bad he didn't know you're the furthest thing from _fucking sweet."_

"Then what am I?" I dare him, as if any dare has teeth when you're fucking yourself on someone's hand.

But Flip responds immediately, his nostrils flaring and his eyes blazing bright. "You're _all_ fucking _mine_ ," he seethes and yanks me in for a brutal kiss. 

Our lips meet, hot and urgent, and then his tongue seeks out the seam of my mouth, demanding entry, demanding succor. I let him in. I let him taste my mouth for the first time as he finger-fucks me against the wall and fists my hair. He sweeps through my mouth the way he does everything else---quietly; intensely, and with raw, untamed male power.

But I manage to break his silence and elicit a long groan from him when I kiss him back, when I stroke my tongue along his the way I would his cock, with flickers and swirls and promise. I know that I shouldn't do this.

Fraternization is fine, but sex on duty definitely isn't---and we're not only on duty but also on police department property. In the same building as twenty other cops. I should push Flip away, straighten up my skirt, and act like Rey Kenobi again. 

_I'm so sick and tired acting like Rey Kenobi._ The thought adds to the restless itch that's been crawling through my blood since I saw Flip standing firm and sure next to my cubicle. I'm tired of being lonely, of being the best, of being the sort of woman that would fit a man like Hux. And as foolish as it is, something about Flip drives back his lonely ache and makes me feel alive again---and I can't surrender that to the faceless pestle of prosperity and professionalism. Not yet, anyways. 

I reach up and grab his collar. "I want to get fucked again," I say reach against his mouth. “So badly, Flip.” 

He doesn't flinch. Doesn't hesitate. "Here?" he asks.

"Here."

His mouth comes back over mine, hard, as he adds yet another thick finger inside me. "I don't have a condom on me, Rey."

My high-heels make it difficult to rise and press to get the friction I want, and Flip knows it, using my inability to more to tease me, to edge me along the brink until I think I might go stark mad. 

"I don't care," I pant. "I'm using birth control. I'm clean. Fuck me bare."

He pulls back enough to catch my eyes, and the raw lust is there enough to make me knees buckle. "Rey."

"Are you clean, Flip? Say that you are. Say you'll stick that beautiful cock as yours inside me. Say you'll do it now."

"I'm clean." I nearly faint in relief. "But if I do this, I'm going to cum inside you," he warns. His fingers stroke inside my cunt to underscore his words. "Going to make that pussy mine. You got it?"

"Oh God, yes, please, _please_ do that," I'm dangerously close to babbling now, my hands still twisting in his his collar. "Give me _all_ of that glorious hot cum of yours. Fill me up."

He gives me a nod. "And you have to be extra quiet," he says, his free hand unbuckling his duty belt. "Can you do that?"

"I'd like to promise that I can?" I offer, and for the first time on our acquaintance, I see his mouth hitch up in a smile. It kicks the breath right out of my lungs, he's so handsome.

He slides his fingers free and says, "Open up for me, baby.”

And then my mouth is filled with his thick fingers---which taste just like me. It's so filthy, I can't stand it. 

"I want you to keep your legs spread for my cock," he rumbles, and I obey his command. "Think you can do that for me?"

"Y-Yes," I pant, eager waiting for him to fill me. I'm practically itching, starving for it at this point that I fear if I don't get it soon---I really might just die. Luckily, Zimmerman hasn't disappointed me yet. 


	7. Chapter 7

FLIP ZIMMERMAN

I'm about to fuck Rey Kenobi in the investigations station. But more than that, I'm about to fuck her surrounded by boxes if evidence for the case we should be working on, with my new supervisor down the hallway, in broad fucking daylight, and I honest-to-God don't care.

In my defense, I didn't stand a damn chance after she murmured those magic words. _I want to get fucked again. So badly, Flip._

Although it's possible I didn't ever stand a chance. Not after catching her staring at my ass in that obscene way of hers. Not after seeing her beautiful and polished, sitting in her cubicle. Maybe not even after last night. One hit and I'm a goner. Rey Kenobi: gateway drug to pure happiness. Except she's a gateway drug to even more of her.

She's got me craving and trembling for just one more taste. Just one more touch. Running me extra ragged is the slow unraveling of her own self-control-all the equilibrium and poise vanishing under my lips, my fingers.

Seeing my scent drive her wild, feeling my jealousy get her wet. Her plea for us to fuck bare. There's a good reason I don't pack a condom in my badge wallet or uniform pockets, and it's because it's against policy to fuck anyone while on duty. 

And when I say _against policy,_ I mean I'll be outside on my ass so fast that I won't even have time to put on my sunglasses to make myself even look cool. 

But I don't even care right now, because right now? With my fingers in Rey's mouth and her eyes burning an emerald-gold against mine? It would totally be worth it. It takes one hand to unbuckle the duty belt and only a moment to pop off the keepers and drop it to the ground. I don't even bother pulling the under-belt free---I unfasten it to expose my pants button, and then I'm able to unzip.

Rey makes noises around my fingers---a sort of whine that communicates one thing to me and that's: _hurry-the-fuck-up, Zimmerman._ My cock is so eager to be freed that it nearly slaps up against my abs after I tug down the waistband of my boxers. 

And I can already feel the cool kiss of chilly air along my tip, telling me I have pre-cum beading there. After that, it's just some pragmatic rearranging of fabric to make sure my cock is unimpeded and her panties are shoved well free.

"Shh," I tell her and remove my fingers from her mouth. “Do you want us to get caught?”

I need both hands to do this next part: a hand for grabbing one stocking-covered thigh to hike to my hip and the other to stir my head around her opening. But she can't _shh,_ at least not very well. The minute the hot, taut skin of my crown kisses along her pussy, she lets out a noise that has me ready to blow---and would also let anyone walking by know _exactly_ what we are doing. 

A quick time-out then. I drop her leg, and amid a whine of protest at the lack of contact between us, I unclip her garters and pull down and remove her panties completely. 

And then I put them in her mouth. Not a lot---not enough to truly gag her or make her uncomfortable--but enough that she has to work to keep them firmly in place. Enough that she'll be reminded to stay silent, because we really can't be caught. Not here, not now.

Not only do I not want to get fired, but if I manage to get one of the best detectives in the metro because I couldn't keep it in my pants? I'm never going to not hate myself. So it's panties and silence for now. 

Her eyes are wide and wondering on mine as I trace a finger around her perfect mouth. The lace spilling out of it only highlights the smoothness of her lips, the naturals, lipstick-free pink of them. 

"That's much better," I say quietly. "Can't have you getting caught, now can we? Can't have you trying to explain why you needed my cock so badly you couldn't wait."

She closes her eyes and nods, and I use the moment to bring her leg back to my hip again. With her opened up and her mouth full, I can now freely nudge at the entrance waiting for me without worrying about her pleasured noises bringing the entire investigations unit running in. She's hot and slick, and shudders race up and down my spine as I fund the little opening all tucked away in her wet folds and forge in.

I've never felt this-- _never-_ -not even as a dumbass teenager or when I thought I was going to marry Mara. Never had my bare cock surrounded by a hot pussy, skin to skin, with nothing in between. 

It's impossible to describe, impossible even to process, and I make an unholy grunt as I finally reach home. Rey makes a noise around her panties, and I look into her wide, surprised eyes.

She looks down at where we're joined, past my rucked-up uniform and her crumped skirt to where only a glimpse of my thick shaft is visible before it disappears inside her. She males the noise again, and I suddenly realize she's saying _oh. Yeah. Oh._

"Shit, Rey," I whisper, feeling undone, vulnerable with the sheer experience of taking her like this. "How the fuck did I ever walk away from you last night?" I emphasize my point with a sharp thrust, testing the angle and the pressure of us like this. "How the fuck did I not stay and fuck and fuck and fuck you until neither of us could walk?"

Her eyes flutter closed in that way I'm learning means she's aroused beyond relief, and I reward her with another slide---this one with a little grind against her clit at the end. 

Her supporting leg nearly buckles, and she grabs on to my shoulders for balance, her manicured fingernails digging in through my shirt as I start truly pounding into her. Even in her sexy-as-fuck heels, the mismatch in our heights make the angle a little rough, a little desperate.

I have to bend my knees and palm her ass to hitch her higher against me, and she finally wraps her other leg around my waist and locks her heels at the small of my back, now fully pinned against the wall by my cock and the force of our need. It's grinding and wet and messy. She clings to me, carrying most of her weight with her clenched thighs and her arms braced on my shoulders, but I have to keep her pressed against the wall for balance.

Which keeps the swollen bead of her clit tight against me, keeps it rubbed and squeezed and all the good stuff that makes her writhe and quake and pant around the lace in her mouth. It's the lace I watch as I fuck her, focusing on the delicate clovers and whorls of the fabric.

On the glimpses of pull pink lips underneath, of pinker tongue and white teeth. At first, I do it to distract myself from the insane feeling of her pussy around my cock and that shapely ass cradled in my palms, but then it becomes its own torture. 

Her perfect mouth, tempting in its lush elegance, crammed full of my homemade gag. And she let me---she just _let me_ \--as if I had every right to gag her.

Every right to do and take whatever I wanted. I curl in, snag her earlobe with my teeth. "Get there, Rey," I grate out. "You feel too good, and you have to get there because I can't last much longer."

She nods, and the movement brushes her panties across my polyester uniform shirt with a gentle rasp that drives me wild. I have to close my eyes and conjure up memories of crawling through frozen mud at boot camp and eating rubbery DFAC food to stave off the knot of orgasm that's currently pulling tight at the base of my cock. 

_I can't cum yet...I can't cum yet....her first...I can't cum yet...._

Rey manages to find a new way to bear down onto me that gives her clit even more attention. We're toiling hard, the both of us, sweat misting damp across our skin and breathing fast, short, feverish breathes, and I see the moment our labor pays off. 

The moment she finally catches hold of her release, and with a whimper, she drops her head onto my shoulder and quivers around my cock. 

Big, rolling quivers that clench down at the tip of me buried somewhere deep inside her. She's mumbling something around her panties as she rides out her orgasm, the same thing over and over again, and it takes me a few times hearing it to realize it's my name. It's my fucking name. 

_Flip, Flip, Flip, oh God Flip....._

My orgasm slams into me so hard that I want to road with the sheer ecstasy of it, the primal victory of pumping my cum deep into a woman and giving her everything I have, every last fucking drop. It's messy, so much messier than usual, and as I keep fucking her through the hot slick of my own seed, I remember that it's because there's no condom to keep our bodies separate, no barrier to contain the biological result of thrusting, pumping pleasure. 

It's just my cum and the wet evidence of her orgasm, mixing hot and perfect around us, and feeling it drives my climax on and on and on.

I ejaculate with brutal, seemingly never-ending throbs, each pulse like a jolt of pure heaven sizzling straight through me, and for a moment, I feel more naked than my still-clothed situation should permit. 

Like Rey can see more than just my face or my bare cock but something inside me. Like she can see me in a way no one ever has before. It freaks me the fuck out--but maybe not as much as it should. Maybe I want her to see me because I want _her._ Period.

Everything about her I want, and I want more of it, and I want more of it for a long time. When I set her carefully on her feet and slide out, my cum slips out of her, and one slow drop lands on the toe of her red high-heel. 

"Jesus fucking Christ, I might need to cum again," I say as I watch it happen before my very eyes.

Rey just gives a little croon in response, yanks out her makeshift gag, and then uses the panties to clean off the inside of her thighs. 

I groan again. "Fuck, now I _really_ need to cum again after seeing that sexy display." 

She looks up with some amusement and then back down at my cock, which is already stiffening, ready for round two. I'm astonished to realize that my body is fully ready for it. 

" _Young_ man," she purrs with a seductive smile. “You need to calm your ass down before I go and make something of it, you hear me?”

“It sure does.” I answer, pointing down to my dick, which is fully erect again thanks to her words.

I have no doubt she could keep up with me, though, given the way she's biting her lip and eyeing my erection right now. If we were at her place or mine---if we were anywhere else--we could go as many rounds as needed to scratch this terrible itch. As it is, I'm almost considering asking her for another--just one more, just real fast---because I'm not satisfied, not satisfied at all.

She's still all rumpled and flushed, and that pussy is still exposed and taunting me with it's silky dark curls and swollen, florid petals, and I just need one more time, one more fuck. And then I can start thinking straight again.

Rey's cell-phone rings from the floor where she dropped it earlier, and as she bends down to get it, I hear a voice from out the door. Two voices, actually. Oh....shit!

The look of alarm I shoot to Rey is reflected right back at me, and she ignores the phone in favor of setting herself to rights as quickly as possible. She doesn't bother fastening her garter---simply yanks down her skirt, smooths her shirt, and digs in her portfolio for a small clastic hair tie. 

She pulls her mussed hair into a low ponytail as I zip up and manage to get my duty belt on with some degree of quietude, although the keepers I have to shove into my pockets because I don't have enough time to fasten them on. I shove her panties in my pocket too, unlock the door, and flick on the light. Within seconds of us getting seated at the table, there's a causal knock and then the door pops open.

"Hey," Sergeant Wedge says. The door opens more and he's with---aw, fuck---he's with Chief Bridges. 

I see Rey swallow in the corner of my vision. But both administrators seem unsuspecting and oblivious as they come in, and they don't seem to pick up on Rey's pink cheeks or the smell of sex in the room. 

Not that I can relax any. I just had delicious, wet, unprotected sex in a police station for crying out loud. Sex that is still all over my skin and probably my clothes too, and now my new supervisors are strolling in for a good chat. I hold myself as rigid and as detached as I can manage, hoping and praying that it's not obvious that I was a rutting, eager beast just a few minutes ago.

********

"Kenobi, we're just swinging by on our way out to a meeting to see if you got that report I sent over from the CSPD."

Rey nods, folding her hands over her crossed legs, looking every bit the untouchable ice queen that she's rumored to be. Except between those closed legs is a cunt that's currently leaving a wet spot on that dry-clean-only skirt of hers.

I find a jerk of primitive satisfaction at the thoughts. "Yes, I did," she says crisply. "It was a report full of nothing which I expected." 

"No leads on their end?"

"No leads," she affirms. "Same as what CSPD and the other Johnson County agencies said. The televisions aren't being sold around in the area, if they're being sold at all. It's like they're being stolen and just hoarded."

"That's not the usual way of things." Wedge sighs, as if personally put out that these criminals aren't following the template. "You think they're planning on selling them in one big shipment." 

"It would be foolish," Rey says and lifts a shoulder in a graceful shrug. "But I suppose we can't rule anything out just yet. I'm pulling together a list of plates that have hit plate readers mounted on traffic lights near the burglarized officers. Any duplicates hits---especially within the hours before and after the burglary--I'm going to follow up on. I suppose a next step could be seeing if any of those car owners have made payments for a storage unit in the metro area. We might be find our television there?"

Wedge and Bridges are nodding. "When it's warrant time, loop me in," Wedge says. "I want to look it over before we submit it to a judge."

"Of course," Rey says coolly, and then Bridges and Wedge ramble on a bit more about this and that before one of them glances at the clock on the wall and gives a theatrical sigh. 

"It's time to head out. Great work, Rey," Bridges says, and they finally leave.

When the door closes, I look across the table at Rey and see a particular tightness around her mouth. If I had to guess, I'd say she looks pissed, but on Rey, it's hard to guess at any emotion because she's constantly wearing this forbidding, almost haughty shell. 

"Wedge piss you off?" I hazard.

She looks back at ne with some surprise and then gives a reluctant, sly grin. "Is it that obvious?"

"Nothing about you is obvious," I say, and I mean it. "But I'm determined to learn every single thing about you. Including how you _feel_ and what you _hide_." 

Her lips part, ever so slightly, and she shakes her head. "I keep thinking I know just the box to put you in, and then you just keep on surprising me..." I'm dying to know what box she wants to out me, but she continues. "Yes, Wedge has been frustrating to deal with. He just transferred into investigations last month, after I'd been put on the robberies. He's old and a man, and he has old-man ideas about what I'm capable of. He's been micromanaging the hell out of this case, and me, and I don't deserve that."

I love how unapologetically she talks about this. How fearlessly she calls out Wedge on this bullshit. I don't know what she sees in my face just now, but she raises an eyebrow.

"I have pride too, you know," she says. "Cop pride is not exclusive to people with penises."

"That's not exactly what I was thinking."

"Then what _were_ you thinking?"

"That I'd like to have a few rounds in the ring with Wedge until he started treating you with a little bit of respect." 

This seems to please her--fine little lines bracket the corners of her fully mouth and spread out from her eyes. "Young man," she says to me again, but this time she says with fondness. With affection. 

I don't realize how long our gazes are locked in this sort of baffled, lustful fascination with each other until she clears her throat and looks down.

"Flip, about today," she begins, and my stomach immediately sinks. 

I know that tone of voice. I know it because I'm usually the one to use it. Usually the one to tell someone I just fucked that it's been a great time and now I'll get them an Uber. I don't help her along with this because I don't want it. I know I almost got her fired just now by screwing her in her own police station. 

I know this is nuts, but damnit---I don't care. I just want her, I want us. I want more and after all this I'm never going to get enough of her, of whatever this thing is between us.

"You already know what I'm going to say," she says tactfully, gently. "I am....rather charmed by you, but I think you also charm me out of all reason. And it doesn't make sense anyway."

"What doesn't make sense?" I genuinely don't understand. 

I find her wildly sexy, wildly intelligent, and I want to fuck her every chance I get from now until...well, I don't know until when, but for a good long time. What else does there need to be? Her eyelashes sweep down in a dark fan over her cheeks as she chooses her words carefully.

"Me and another cop. I haven't dated another cop since my fiancé, Eric, and I really shouldn't start now."

"Why not?" The word is out of my mouth before I can really process that she just brought up her dead fiancé and that I should proceed with diplomacy. She's afraid that I'll end up like he did. It's all in her eyes. 

She's still looking down as she thinks again. "What happened when he died---I just can't live through that again. I barely survived it the first time around."

She meets my gaze again, and I'm nearly rocked back by the emotion simmering in her hazel eyes. "Rey... talk to me, please." I began, sensing myself wanting nothing more than to comfort her.

"I know what they say about me. That I'm incapable of grief or love or any feelings at all. The Ice Queen is what they call me. The truth is I wanted to die with Eric that night, and I truly think a part of me did. And what's left won't be able to survive if it happens again." 

"So no cops....because you're afraid that they might die? Well, Rey, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but everyone dies eventually. In every profession known to man, every day."

She presses her lips together. "It's not the same thing as losing someone close to you, Flip. And cops are reckless, risky, and rough. They get hard. Now that I've seen what can happen, I don't know if it's what I want in my future."

"I certainly didn't hear any compliments about my getting hard earlier. In fact, you seemed to enjoy it."

She looks like she wants to roll her eyes. "Please don't go and joke about this. You're young, Flip. Inappropriately young."

"We're the same age, Rey, and I don't mind," I tell her. "So I don't quite understand where you are going with all of this and besides it doesn't bother me at all"

She looks away. "It may not bother you but it will eventually cause things to be a little difficult between the both of us in the long haul."

"Why?"

She still doesn't look at me. "Because you're young and sexy and you'll have equally young and sexy girls raining from the sky. You deserve better than wasting your precious time on someone like me." 

She stands up to leave. I stand up too, not willing to let this go---let her go. "Rey---don't do this---don't go this way."

She holds up her hand. "It's enough, Flip. It's enough to make it a very bad idea. Besides, you technically work for me now, and you're the kind of man I've sworn to stay away from anyway. Maybe you can fuck the same person over and over again without feelings getting involved, but I look at you and I know that's not going to be possible for me."

She takes a low, deep breath and finally meets my eyes. I could literally stand here and look at her forever if she would only let me. If this is what falling in love feels like---it's a bitch, but I find myself _wanting_ more of it. More of her. _Give me more, Rey. Give me all of you._

"I look at you and I think you might just be capable of breaking my heart."

And with that bombshell dropped, she crosses the door without so much as a _goodbye_ and leaves me alone in the meeting room. The room that still smells like us. 


	8. Chapter 8

REY KENOBI

It's quite frigid between us after that. Perhaps the frigidly is all on my side. Perhaps I'm the one making it cold, because more than once this week, I've caught him staring at me with a heated need that nearly made my skin catch on fire. He still wants me. And fuck all if I don't still want him back.

But life isn't that easy nor is it fair, and after the close call of Wedge and Bridges nearly walking in on us, I'm reminded of what matters most here. _Working. The Damn. Case._

So we work the case. Flip has officially switched to day shift now, so I actually do get him up to speed on everything. I assign him to some follow-ups and calls to witnesses to verify reports, and we manage to get through it without any unprofessional interaction. Or, you know, more police station sexual-intercourse. I can't stop aching for him, though.

Those intense brown eyes that get darker and stormier when they look at me. That frowning mouth that I know can be kissed into softness. 

Those big, rough hands that handle my body the way I've always needed to be handled, even if I hadn't known it. More than once when we're working in the meeting room, I excuse myself to use the restroom and then rub myself to a quick, urgent orgasm in the stall just to take the edge off.

It's the only time I've ever been grateful for the gender disparity in the police force---more privacy in the bathroom to indulge this unseemly need for a partner/co-worker. 

It's a long week, with both of us unhappy and strained and physically uncomfortable. And the week gets even longer when I realize I have my low-tight range recertification waiting for me at the end of it. 

It's the annual test I have to take to prove to my department I can operate a firearm in the dark. But I know I can operate a firearm in the dark and operate it well. It was how I killed Eric's murderer that night. And therein lies the problem. It's the one thing I do each year that brings it all back. The dark, shitty house in the worst part of town. 

The frantic babbles of the meth addict who'd just stabbed Eric and left him to bleed out on the dirty floor. The kick of the gun in my hand as I fired and the killer fell. Trying to save the man I was supposed to marry....

My hands shake as I pull my vest over my shirt. I opted out of my usual uniform of silk and tailored skirts today knowing I'd be striding and darting around the darkened range rooms. I'm wearing blue, like a real cop. Something I rarely do since I transferred to investigations after Eric's death, leaving the world of uniforms and midnight stabbings behind me. 

So here I am---polyester uniform shirt, utility pants, loadbearing vest. I'm even wearing boots instead of my customary heels. I have to force myself to breathe as I tighten the laces, I'm so agitated by what's about to come.

 _It's so stupid to feel like this,_ I chastise myself. It's been five years, and anyway, it's never permissible to be afraid of the dark.

But the minute the lights go down, my mouth goes dry. I can make myself move through the cinderblock rooms, shining my flashlight into faceless paper targets. I can make myself shoot perfectly, hearing only the dull pop pops through my earmuffs, but it doesn't matter. I still see that house, the terrified and blank face of the perp, spattered with Eric's blood. I still smell old food and vomit and the coppery scent of my fiancé's life soaking into the old, stained carpet. 

I still remember Eric's vacant stare. I relive it every single time that I'm forced to do this. When I finally finish, I'm as empty as the magazine in my gun.

"Two-hundred forty-six of two fifty." The firearms sergeant grins at me as I'm taking off my vest. "That's a new personal best."

"Sure."

He laughs. "Don't act too excited about it now."

I try to give him a smile in return, but it feels all wrong on my face. Everything feels wrong. Nothing will ever feel right again. Making excuses, I stride quickly out of the training center and get to my unmarked car. 

I go back to my station and finish up for the day, staying a couple of hours late because I forget to look at the clock and can't seem to feel the time passing. Flip has gone home--the keys to his patrol car are hung back up, and I recognize every personal car left in the lot, meaning none of them are his. 

Not seeing Flip makes everything worse--makes everything so bad that I just want to curl up and cry and cry and cry. But I don't cry. I never do. Somehow I make it out to my own car, with my portfolio and purse in the passenger seat and my phone in my hand. I've dialed Trapp. _What the hell am I even doing?_ I don't know at this point, honestly. 

"Trapp," Nick answers in his familiar brusque way.

"Nick, where do your evening people go to unwind?"

A pause. "Why are you asking me that?"

"I'm looking for someone."

"Is it Flip Zimmerman?" my old friend asks in a too-casual voice. 

Oh no. Like any cop, Nick smells gossip and I'm searching for a plausible reason--any plausible reason---why I'd need to see Flip after hours. _Lie, Rey, even thought you are fucking terrible at it, just lie,_ I scold myself as Trapp patiently awaits my answer.

"I have a couple questions about his contracts today. He was out of the station his whole shift, and I didn't have a chance to catch him before he left." 

Even with as shaken up as I an, as empty and wrong-feeling, my voice is still perfectly steady, perfectly cool. I know I sound convincing. 

"Okay," Trapp says, and I can tell he's torn between his instincts and how well I sold that lie. "Well, the eves crew usually heads over to the Dirty Nickel after a shift or on their days off. He might be there, I guess."

His guess is my hope. I don't have his cell number, and I don't feel comfortable digging through personnel records to get it when this isn't police business. Ditto with his address. But showing up at his favorite dive is any better? Get a grip, Kenobi.

"Thanks for your help, Nick."

"Anytime. And hey..." He stops for a moment, as if deciding how to proceed. "I saw in payroll that you had lowlight range today. And I know---well, what I mean is, if you ever need to talk to someone, I'm here."

My throat feels as if someone's cinching a ribbon tight around it. "Thank you, Nick. That's very kind of you."

"I mean it, okay?"

"Okay. Goodnight."

And Trapp hangs up without saying goodbye, per usual. I drop the phone in my passenger seat and sigh. I really should go home. I should go home and do what I've done every day after the low-light range: pop open a bottle of wine, drink the entire thing, and then fall asleep curled around Eric's college sweatshirt. I should not go to a place called the Dirty Nickel to find a man I've fucked twice and whom works for me.....

And what? What exactly is my plan if I find him? That Flip will take one look at me and know I need to be hugged? That I need a warm chest to finally, _finally_ cry into?

No. If anything, we'll fuck, because that's the only connection we seem to have, and then we'll both be miserable afterwards because every time we have sex, we're courting major professional trouble. I really should not go to the Dirty Nickel. 

No. I should not go. I start my car and tell myself repeatedly as I pull out of the parking lot and onto the main road to just go home. 

********

The Dirty Nickel is in a rougher part of town, in a cluster of old strip malls and used car lots, tucked away at the end of a low-slung building that also contains a thrift store and a vape shop. It's a far cry from the martini bar I occasionally venture out to with my girlfriends from college. I nearly almost go home to change into something less fancy....and then remember I'm not in my usual silk and tailored wool.

I'm the dark-blue polyester of my uniform, with utility boots and a ponytail. All I'm missing are the sunglasses and I could be a cop for Halloween. 

With a sigh at the uniform---and at everything, absolutely everything---I get out of the car and walk inside. It doesn't matter what I'm wearing. It doesn't matter because I shouldn't be here, shouldn't be doing this, but it's the only thing I can think to do. 

It's the only thing that feels right when everything else feels so wrong. The inside of the bar is only marginally better than the outside. Pool tables hunker down under him lights, a couple of televisions play a baseball game between two teams no one cares about, and an unseen jukebox issues forth music other detectives and I call "construction worker rock."

At seven, the place is just picking up, and I catch a table in the far corner with a few faces I vaguely recognize. Young cops.

It's awful, perhaps even a little elitist, but I don't bother to learn a rookie's name until they bother to stick around for five years. Or more. So I'm not entirely certain who they are or what shift they work or how long they've worked for Colorado Springs, but they're definitely CSPD. 

Even if I didn't recognize their faces, I'd be able to tell they were cops immediately. Legs sprawled but eyes alert, everyone in those free T-shirts you get for working golf tournaments or charity 5Ks or holiday parades.

The men with short, inexpensive haircuts and the women in low ponytails or messy buns. Not every woman, of course. 

In a table of about twelve, five of them are women, and three of those five are definitely cops, but the other two are just as definitely not. They've got impeccable makeup and glossy hair, and they're young, so fucking young.

Badge bunnies as we call them at the office. I've never liked the term--it seems vaguely sexist to me to disparage young women for the type of men they like to take to bed---but right now, something about their shiny, giggling youthfulness sets my teeth on edge. Especially after I see that one of them is curled around the one cop I do recognize. Flip. 

He hasn't seen me yet. He's peering up at the baseball game with his fingers wrapped around a beer bottle, but the bunny sees me standing in the doorway.

She watches me watching them with her salon-perfect bleach-blonde hair brushing against Flip's shoulder and her hand on his thigh. He's in street clothes the same kind of free-event T-shirt the rest of the cops are wearing, and battered jeans and boots. 

And he still looks magnificent. All rounded, muscled shoulders, long firm thighs, and a stubbed jaw that looks like pure sex. A warrior at rest, with the requisite maiden waiting to comfort him.

 _I have to go._ That's the only thought that registers in my mind---the rest is an awful kind of static. A static that hisses _well, what did you expect? You pushed him away. How long did you think it would take him to find someone else to screw?_

Oh God. I've made a giant mistake in coming here. I'm turning to leave when he sees me, and it's all the air is sucked from the room. His eyes meet mine, and I can't read them, can't even try, because there seems to be every feeling inside that dark gaze. Anger and hurt and lust and longing, and they're all directed at me. Right at me. The bunny looks up to Flip as if she's trying to read his stare like I am, except she takes the extra liberty of sliding her hand up his thigh to rest against the unyielding contours of his abs.

I think she also managed to graze his cock on the way up and Jesus Christ, who the hell was I kidding with that whole _if I break it off earlier, I won't be heartbroken one bit?_

Because I did break it off early, yet here I am, feeling like someone's using the jaws of life to cut through my ribs and expose my beating heart. On top of what I went through today at range, it's too much. 

It's just too fucking much. I break our gaze and wheel around, opening the door into the summer evening and making my escape. _I really have to go._

I have to go home to my wine and to Eric's sweatshirt and the loneliness I chose for myself. At least that way I can be vulnerable in front of nothing more important than a sweatshirt. At least I'm not making a scene in a begrimed bar in front of a whole table of cops.

And I can leave Flip to the bunny and the inevitable outcome of the night. She can kiss that pouty, serious mouth as bad music blares through the bar, and she can have those big hands drag her back to the bar bathroom for impromptu sex. She can feel the ruthless thickness of his cock wedging inside her.

The hard flex of his abs and hips against her ass. His teeth biting her neck as he releases inside her. They can have each other, and I'll have myself and an old sweatshirt that doesn't even smell like the man it used to belong to, and it will be fine.

The summer air is still hot, still waving above the pavement and trying to pull sweat out of my body. It feels like a punishment, and one that I fully deserve. 

The door swings open, and the cop in me can't help but turn at the knowledge that someone's behind me. "Rey," Flip's voice is husky. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Going home, what does it look like?" I say.

I turn away from him because I can't even look at him. I can't look at the man I pushed away, because I can't lie to myself and pretend that I don't regret it. Pretend that I feel some kind of wise, selfless pleasure in seeing some girl crawling all over him. A hand grabs my arm, and I'm spun to face him.

"The fuck you're going home," he says roughly. 

I'm brittle, I'm so damn brittle, and I can't keep my tone even as I say, "I'm leaving and you're free to go back inside your so called _friends._ "

My voice hitches over the word, and again that awful feeling of having my ribs cut clean open returns, even though I deserve it, even thought I've done it to myself. 

"But...I don't want to go back inside to my friends," he says, clearly missing my implication in the word. "I want to know why you're here."

I twist myself out of Flip's grip and start walking to my car. "I-I shouldn't have come here," I say more to myself than him. 

"But you did," he says as he follows me. "Why, Rey? Why did you come here?"

I have my car unlocked before I get to it so I can make a quick escape, but Flip isn't going to make it that easy for me. Before I can even open the door, his hands land on either side of me, caging me in. The hot metal has to be uncomfortable, but there's no pain in his voice as he leans down to my ear.

"Tell me.... _now._ "

The moment seems to intensify, crystalize, and become something sharper, more vivid. Cicadas are chirruping madly everywhere, and a breeze is blowing an empty soda can across the lot. 

It's so humid that the air is a heavy blanket over my skin and behind me I can feel the press of Flip's body. His biceps crowding my shoulders. His chest against my back. His massive erection against my rear. And then where's that scent. That leather and tea tree oil of scent, and I hope it's rubbing on my clothes.

I hope I smell like him when I get home. That, more than anything, defeats me. How can I stay strong when Eric's sweatshirt smells like nothing and Flip is here and vibrant and alive and he smells like everything?

How can I stay strong when I realize that maybe I want Flip more than I ever wanted Eric...and how can I stay strong when I realize that _today_ , of all days? I hang my head forward in surrender. 

"I came for you," I admit in a tired voice. "I came here to find you."


	9. Chapter 9

FLIP ZIMMERMAN

Hot, raw joy floods through my veins at her confession. I open up the car door before she's even finished speaking.

"Get in," I say shortly, and then I'm around the other side of the bar in a heartbeat, climbing into her passenger seat after carefully setting her portfolio on the floor. 

I'm already buckled up by the time she manages to sit down. But she doesn't start the car. "Flip...."

"Ninety-three eleven Reeds Road," I say. "Unit ten. My place."

She bites her lip. "And what about your friends back inside?"

"My tab's paid," I reply. "And those assholes will be just fine without me."

A little huff. "I'm not talking about those assholes or your stupid _tab_ , Flip. I'm talking about the girl who was sitting in your lap."

Oh. _Ohhh._ I look at her more carefully now, at the burnish of red along her cheekbones and the press of her lips. She's jealous. She's jealous and that thought sends a whole stir of male pleasure swirling in my chest. I almost feel like a proud lion, ready to let out a ferocious roar of victory. 

"I don't care about that girl because I'm leaving here with you. You're the one I'm taking home."

Her forehead makes contact with the steering wheel; for once, that perfect ballet posture is slumped over. "This is such a bad idea." 

I touch her shoulder, the familiar fabric of the uniform made sweetly exotic over her slender, lithe muscles. And then I touch the dark silk of her thick ponytail because I simply can't resist it. "I'm not taking you back to my place to fuck you."

She shifts her head, eyes me warily. "You're not?"

"No." I'm still toying with her ponytail. I'm totally entranced by the sight of that exquisite hair bundled into a ripe that practically begs to be wrapped tightly around my fist. "I'm taking you back to my place so that I can take care of you....properly. In a non-fucking sort-of-way."

"I don't need taking care of, Flip," she says rather defensively, stiffening back up to her normal erect bearing.

I can't play with her ponytail like this anymore, dammit, and I settle for curling a finger around her chin instead and making her look at me. "You came here to find me and you found me, and now this is what's going to happen, okay? Now start the car and drive, Rey. Drive us home."

I know she's wrestling with herself here, nibbling more on that plush lower lip until she finally relents and starts the car. "Okay," she says. "But I don't have to stay."

"Of course not."

But of course, she does. I don't mean that in a consensual way---she's free to leave whenever she wants---but in a emotional sense. I know that she needs someone with her, and that someone should be me. I've seen this look in a fellow comrades eyes before. I've seen faces full of vacant restlessness. I don't know what happened to Rey today, but I know whatever did happen was bad. Bad with a capital B.

And with that bad thing, you can either shove that shit way down deep and hope nothing ruptures, or you can find someone you trust and find a way to bleed it out. 

Talking, drinking, fucking, music---anything is fair game at this point. I think Rey has been shoving her shit down for years, and I think she's finally rupturing. I want to be the one to help her bleed it out instead. 

I don't even really know why---in no way should I feel like I deserve that place in her life or in her hurt and healing after just two screws---but I do. This week did absolutely nothing to slake my thirst for her. In fact, it just got worse and worse as the days rolled on without the chance to hold her slender wrists in my hand or the opportunity to run my thumb along the luscious lines of her perfect, pink mouth. 

I jerked my dick raw thinking about her at night. I throbbed in mute agony as I sat across the meeting room table from her during the day. I wanted her so badly that I thought my bones just might crack from it. 

And don't get me started on what happens whenever I think of her words ending our little fling--- _I look at you and I know that's not going to be possible for me. I look at you and I think you might be fully capable of breaking my heart._

I think of those words---and let's be honest here, I've probably thought of them every ten minutes or so since she said them--and this fierce, strange urgency comes over me, like I'm at the top of the roller coaster and ready for the plunge straight into danger. 

It makes my stomach twist up into my throat. And then something vital in my chest twists up into my throat. And then I just want to throw her over my shoulder and do something drastic.

Abduct her like a Viking. Marry her. Hell, even cuddle her on the couch, which is something I haven't done in years and never thought I'd want to again. For now, though, I'm taking care of her. Whatever she needs is what I'll give, for as long as she'll let me. 

"You're in uniform," I remark as Rey pulls out onto the street and angles the car toward my apartment. "I've never seen you in uniform before."

"I had range today," she says, not taking her eyes from the road. "I'll wear the utility uniform for training and, you know, the dress uniform for the official department stuff." Her mouth gives a self-conscious twist. "I wear it so rarely these days that it almost feels more like a costume to me now."

"When I first saw you standing there, I thought I was going to cum in my pants."

My words are so surprising that she snorts out a very unladylike laugh, which makes me smile. I like seeing these cracks in her control, these glimpses of the warm, funny woman that she is underneath her hardened shell. 

But I'm also not kidding. Rey in her silk shirts and high heels is a wet dream come to life, but Rey in uniform? I don't even have the proper words. It's like all that strength and resolve she normally hides under a veneer of cold dignity is even more on display, stripped down to the essential power and discipline she exudes. 

The fitted lines of the shirt highlight her delicately squared shoulders and reveal the tight swells of muscle in her arms. The pants cling to her taut ass and legs.

And her hair in that ponytail---without the gentle, Hollywood-starlet curtain of it softening her features, you can exactly how ethereal she is. High cheekbones and big, fragile eyes. A comely jawline that ends in a pointed, adorable chin. Coupled with that booted, confident stance of hers and her svelte form, she could be one of those elves from the fantasy novels. Otherworldly and lethal. Deceptive beauty concealing a deadly dominance.

God, what man on earth doesn't want to tangle with that? It only takes a few minutes to get to my house, which is one of the reasons why I like the Dirty Nickel so much. 

It's only a short ride home or only a medium walk, and while I'm not hung up on things being convenient in my life, I do like things to be simple. Straightforward. _So what are you doing right now, then, Zimmerman?_

We park and get out, and then I lead her up the stairs to my door. It's only as I'm letting her in that I have a burst of sudden self-consciousness about how she will see my place. She of the flawlessly decorated bungalow. She of the kitchen piled with fresh fruit and flowers.

She of the real-ass art hanging above her sofa. What is she going to think when she sees my Craigslist couch and inherited recliner? 

My collection of signed baseballs and empty QuikTrip cup on my counter that I forgot to throw away this morning? I keep the place pretty tidy, but for all that, it's undecorated and shabby, and it looks like it belongs to a twenty-nine-year-old guy without a fucking girlfriend, much less a wife or fiancé. 

My cheeks flame as we walk inside, and I'm waiting for her to say something negative, waiting for her to raise a sculptured eyebrow at the place, but instead she just turns to me and goes straight into my arms.

Without asking, without hesitation, as if she belongs there. And whatever has been twisting from my chest into my throat now twists so hard that the back of my eyelids are burning.

"Are you ready to talk about it? About what made you come find me?" I whisper into her hair. Her face is buried into my chest, and she just shakes her head, a _swish swish_ of that tempting ponytail of hers. "Can I take care of you, then? Without talking?"

A bob of the ponytail. _Yes._ I wrap my arms around her slim frame, just taking a moment to relish the feeling of her crushed to me, so elegant yet still so strong.

And then I walk backward in slow, careful steps to my bathroom, where I flick on the light and pick her up to set her down on the counter. She watches me with wide, red-rimmed eyes. She hasn't cried yet, but I can feel the force of her tears pushing against her restraint, flooding her control. 

"Do you trust me?" I ask her.

"Yes," she murmurs.

"I'll stop when you say. Always."

She blinks up at me, suddenly looking very young and very, _very_ lost. "I know." 

I take a deep, shivering breath as I reach for her. The thing is that our first time, and our second, Rey had initiated. Rey told me her address or purred that she wanted to get fucked again, and then I followed where she led.

I knew exactly what she wanted out of me, which was a big cock and a dirty mouth. But now? Now when she's sought me out, looking like the sun's just been darkened to ash? It feels different. 

This isn't just a quick, hungry screw. This isn't a primitive urge let out to play. This is me giving something to her, not us trying to take from each other in a frenzied embrace, and I want to get it right the first time around. I want to get it so right that she trusts me to give it to her again and again. I want her to always find me whenever she needs something. I want to always fix anything that's hurting her.

And now my throat is so right I can barely breathe. I begin unbuttoning her uniform shirt, taking care to keep my fingers from grazing against the silky fabric of her expensive athletic shirt underneath. 

Once I get the top few buttons undone, I can access the hidden zipper behind the place of dummy buttons and unfasten the shirt all the way. I pull it from her arms and then drape it over the towel bar. Next come her boots, which I unlace and gently remove, as if I'm handling precious glass slippers and not steel-toed footwear. She flinches when I get to her socks--I imagine in Rey's head, someone seeing and interacting with something as shamefully human as socks is very embarrassing--but I don't let her move away from me.

I'm not afraid of her socks. And nothing about her wonderful body should make her shy. After pulling the socks free, I give her bare feet several kisses to prove it. 

I nudge her off the counter and remove her belt and pants, which I also go over the towel bar, and now she's only in her undershirt and panties. 

"Do you trust me?" I ask her again, and she knows what I'm asking.

Does she trust me not to make this sexual? Does she trust that I'm not doing this for me but for her? She nods. And then I strip her completely bare. It's the first time I've seen her naked, and even though I ignore my erection, my body's natural response to her unclothed form is like being struck by lightning.

Heat everywhere. Light behind my eyelids. My life poised on a razor's edge. She's porcelain, rare and precious. Her breasts are little teardrops, still pert and high on her chest and tipped with pale-pink nipples.

A narrow waist curves in and then gently flares into her hips, and an adorable navel studs her belly along with a couple of tempting freckles. Below that belly is the sweet cup of her pussy, covered by neatly---almost primly---trimmed dark curls.

But she's also _real._ There's a few thing white streaks along her hips and on the sides of her breasts---the kind of stretch marks that come from living, not from babies---and a small curve below her navel that softens her belly out of true flatness. Slightly too-large areolas and a little mole under one breast. She's real and she is perfect. 

I pull her into me and kiss her hairlines because I can't not kiss it. "You're so fucking beautiful it hurts just to look at you," I say roughly.

She only rubs her face against my still fully-clothed chest in answer. I step back and quickly undress, doing my best to ignore the throbbing erection currently aimed at the ceiling. I turn on the shower and coax her inside once it's warm. 

********

I start washing her. Methodically, scrupulously. Avoiding the stiff buds of her nipples and the plump weight of her ass and the silky curls between her legs. Instead, I focus on her arms and legs and her feet. I spend a long time soaping up her back and shoulders and then kneading her tight muscles until she's lip and heavy-eyed. The familiar smell of my body wash rises all around the shower stall, mixed with something fragrant and female that is uniquely her.

I wish we had her soap here, her scents, but at the same time, I can't deny the primitive pleasure in having her covered in my own. Marking her skin with my smell. 

After her body, I wash her hair. I mean for it to be comforting, soothing, and maybe it is at first. As I pull her hair free from her ponytail with solicitous care---making sure not to yank or tug--and as I begin working the shampoo into her hair, she makes low, happy noises in her throat and leans back against me.

For a while, it seems like she's practically purring under my touch, and I make sure to massage her scalp as I work. To pamper her. 

But after I rinse the conditioner from her hair, I notice that her shoulder are hitching in barely perceptible jerks, rising and falling in the suppressed, shuddering way of someone trying to hide their tears. She's finally letting it all out...and for me.

"Rey, baby," I say, turning her so that she can bury her face in my chest again, which is exactly what she does. 

I wrap my arms around her and cradle her, my broad back shielding us from the spray as she sobs against me and I stroke her hair. She cries so hard that her entire body shakes, that she can barely breathe, and I wonder if she cries like this often. 

I wonder if this is the first time she's ever let herself cry about anything. I chafe her back and kiss her wet hair that smells like my shampoo, and I simply hold her and let her use me.

Use me as a safe place for her, use my arms and my chest and my silence. My strength and my body are hers. And I'm beginning to think my heart is too. After a good ten or fifteen minutes, her sobs begin to space apart, quiet down into muted sniffles and sucks of breath, and she tilts her head to look up at me with owlish eyes still glassed over with tears.

"Thank you," she whispers. 

I can barely hear it over the running water. I give her temple a kiss in response, using every last shred of my control not to kiss her full on the mouth and stroke her tongue with my own.

In fact, we've both been very maturely ignoring my hard-on as it dug into her back and stomach, knowing it was a lost cause. I'm a little proud of how well-behaved I've been, considering the naked, slick, emotional circumstances. 

"You said you weren't going to fuck me," Rey says, reaching up to touch my face. I cradle her face in response, feeling the fragile flex and work of her jaw as she speaks. "What if I've changed my mind? And I wanted to be fucked?"

I peer down at her, water droplets dancing off my shoulders to make a heavy mist around us, and I study her expression through the haze. Study her hazel eyes, as open and vibrant as a precious jewel. Her mouth, which is currently in a shape of worried hope. Vulnerable excitement. 

"We don't have to," I tell her quickly. "I know that I'm hard as a fucking rock right now---that's just what happens when I'm around you---but that doesn't mean we have to do anything."

The elegant and refined Rey Kenobi gives me an eye roll worthy of any teenager. "Do I really seem like the kind of woman who would give out pity sexy just because a man had a sad, lonely boner?"

Hearing the word _boner_ from her pretty lips is enough to make me laugh. "Okay, maybe not." 

"I want to because I want to, Flip. Because I want you." Her eyebrows pull together a little, as if she's trying to puzzle something out. "I _need_ you."

"Then you can have me," I rumble, sliding my palms down to the delicate bevel of her collarbone. And then down farther so I can feel her heartbeat under my fingertips and her nipples harden against my palms.

"Bare again," she begs as I start toying with them.

"Yes, ma'am," I murmur, and then I duck down and take her nipple into my mouth. 

She gasps and arches, her hand coming to the back of my head to encourage me. I groan at the feeling of her fingers in my hair, tugging at the long locks, and I nearly growl at the sensation of her nipple stiffening even more between my lips.

I suck and suck with hot pulls, and then I catch it gently with my teeth until she gasps again. I move to the other side to torment her other one until they're both dark pink and jutting out from her breasts in inflamed need. Then I drop down to my knees. Rey moans in anticipation as I brush my lips over her mound, and then she breathes out a long _ohhhh_ when my flickering tongue finds her clit.

The shower has washed away most of her flavor, so I sling her leg over my shoulder and spread her open with my thumbs so that I can taste the very heart of her. 

I taste it, finally, with her pushed open and my face practically buried between her legs. I grunt as the sweet and salt of her blooms on my tongue, and my cock jolts with so much need that I have to jack it even as I service her just to keep my limbs from shaking. 

"Oh God," she says once she catches sight of me handling my dick. "Oh God, get up here, get up here now---"

I stand, careful to make sure she has her balance as I do, and then I press her against the shower wall and kiss the hell out of her. I kiss her until she can taste herself on my tongue, and I kiss her until she's trying to grind her pussy against the thigh I put between her legs.

I break the kiss and look down, thinking I could watch her needy pussy rocking against my bare thigh all day long, but of course my dick doesn't think that.

"You ready?" I ask. 

She whimpers out a yes, and then I lift her into my arms so that her legs go around my waist, notch the head of my cock, at her opening and impale her in one smooth delicious glide.

She wraps her arms around my neck for more leverage, and I brace her against the shower wall again. It's so much like the time we fucked in the station, except it's completely different. For one thing, it's slippery wet, so we have to be more creative, fucking more with arms and twists of hips rather than with the grunting, battering force I used in the meeting room.

And instead of wearing the uniforms and badges that define our lives, we're stripped bare, right down to the skin. 

Even our expressions are naked, and Rey's is showing me all the fear and hurt and longing she carries around inside her every day, and her eyes are shining down at me like I single-handedly saved Christmas. 

There's a new kind of intimacy between us. Something far more than just sex---more than friendship or respect, even---and it feels fragile and breakable and beautiful beyond all reason. Oh God. She's twisting me up so badly, twisting my heart right up. 

I catch her lips with mine. "Do you..." I start to ask and then stop myself because what I was really about to say was _Do you feel what you're doing to me? And then maybe I would have also said, Do you know that I'm falling in love with you?_

I'm beyond terrified of scaring her off, so I don't finish what I started. And maybe I don't need to. Maybe Rey can see it in my face anyway, because she presses her forehead to mine and murmurs, "Yes."

Just one word to my half question. _Do you...? Yes._ I'm not going to survive her, I think. She comes apart into a slippery, shivering mess, her cunt pulsating all around my shaft and squeezing me on to my own orgasm---as fierce as it is tender, surging into her warmth with her hazel eyes on mine and her hand in my hair. 

For a minute, we simply pant together like that, the water still spattering our shoulders and feet and our shared essences beginning to seep out from where we're joined. 

It's a surprisingly cozy feeling---or maybe cozy isn't exactly the right word. Restful, maybe. Familiar in the sense that it feels _right._ It feels like coming home. In that I want to feel it again and again and again. 

I comb her hair once we leave the shower and then bundle her into a big T-shirt of mine, and we nestle into my bed together. I'm too sated and sleepy and filled with this big new feeling for her to care that my bed is a store-closing-sale mattress on a plain metal frame or that my comforter is an old threadbare thing from my sister's college days. And Rey doesn't seem to notice.

She just tucks her hands under her cheek like a fairy-tale princess and closes her eyes. Not good enough.

I wrap and arm around her waist and pull her snug against my chest, allowing her to wriggle a bit so that her backside is pressed against my ever-present erection and her back is to my chest. I tell my dick to settle down, tuck her head under my chin, and completely encase her in my arms. 

For a long time, we lie like this in the darkness, breathing together, her feet idly rubbing around my calves, and I think she's asleep. Until she takes a deep breaths and says, "Eric died at night. In a dingy little house in the bad part of town. The electricity had been shut off at some point, so when I went in, there were no lights on...."

She pauses, tensing up in my arms, and I wonder what she's remembering. What she's seeing in her mind as she shares her pain with me.

"It was dark and so hard to see, and everything happens all so fast. And Eric---" She stops abruptly, and I guess that's a part of the story I won't get to hear. At least not yet.

Another breath. "I shot, but I wasn't fast enough. It was so dark, and I didn't want to hit the man I was going to marry."

I squeeze her close to me, knowing deep down that there's nothing that I can say that will ease or fix her of the pain she feels. I know it can't bring Eric back to her, but I can only hope my comfort helps....even just a little bit. 

"It was so stupid me, but after....everything....I went outside to wait for backup to arrive, and there was blood everywhere, just everywhere. And it was starting to dry on my hands in this awful, sticky way, and all I wanted was to wash them, just _fucking wash them,_ because all that blood was supposed to be inside him, not on me, and he was dead and I'd watched him die on my watch and it was all over my hands..."

"Rey. Babe." I hold her tighter, wishing there was some way I could cage her in my arms and keep her safe and free from the bad memories forever. 

"I did all the mandatory counseling after it happened, all the therapy for PTSD, and I'm fine most of the time. Nearly all of the time, in fact. But there's something about squeezing the trigger in the dark that makes it all come back to me."

I let her words fall back down around us like rain and soak into the ground. Soak back into silence. Sometimes that's all that's ever needed. But this is something she and I share. 

Maybe we don't share an age or the same kind of upbringing but tragic violence in the course of duty...yes, I know it too. I know it well.

My voice is tired with experience when I speak. "Knowing you killed someone is hard. Knowing you didn't kill them fast enough to save someone you care about is even harder."

She considers this. "Did you kill anyone in the war?"

"Yes."

"And watched someone you care about die?"

"Yes. Not a fiancé, but a close friend of mine. Yes."

"Oh, Flip."

I press my lips into her hair. "It's okay. Like you, I did all the counseling too. And it's still hard for me sometimes, but I'm going to be okay."

Rey sighs. Rubs her toes on my shins. "I'm going to be okay too." And then more silence. This time I think she's really drifted off to sleep, and I'm about to follow her in pursuit, when she whispers, "Flip?"

"Hmm."

"Were you going to fuck that other girl if I hadn't shown up tonight?"

I don't know what it says about me that I'm a little glad she's still jealous, even though I left that girl in the cold so I could bring Rey home with me instead. Even though it was Rey who got her hair washed and then had my tongue in her pussy.

But I wanted her to know the truth. I want her to know where this is going for me. "No, I wasn't going to fuck her, no matter what happened. She's a friend's young sister, so I didn't want to shove her off me in public and embarrass her, but I had planned on letting her know that it wasn't going to happen."

"Why not?" Rey asks, and she asks it almost like she's afraid to hear the answer.

"I think you know why," I reply. 

There's a long pause, and I may not have a ton of experience with delicate talk like but, but I know I've gone as far as I can go tonight.

"Goodnight, Rey." I add softly, and she nestles her nose into my bicep in response.

And this time we really do fall asleep. And if I recall, it's the best sleep that I've ever had in a very, _very_ long time---I regret nothing of it. Absolutely....nothing. 


	10. Chapter 10

REY KENOBI

I wake up still wrapped in Flip's arms, with an almighty erection wedged against my bottom and soft snores in my ear. The sun is bright and new, telling me it's still fairly early, and the lack of alarms chiming in the room reminds me that we both have the day off. I stretch my legs and arms and back as much as possible inside his giant bear hug, wonder if I could possibly doze back off, and then reluctantly concede that I'm wide awake for good now.

I pry myself free of his embrace and make to slide out of bed and investigate Flip's coffee or tea options---but I'm immediately seized by the waist and hauled back against his big, sleepy body. "No," comes his half-awake growl. "Stay."

"It's morning, Flip."

"It's also our day off." His voice is petulant, adolescent even, and I roll over to look at him, to coax him awake, but I'm simply crushed back into his chest.

I can feel the snores vibrate through him when he finally falls back asleep seconds later. " _Young_ man," I whisper to myself, smiling a little.

I manage to push away enough that I can stare at him---really stare sat him--as he sleeps. At the adorable sprawl of his big body, the pout of his parted mouth, and the long eyelashes resting dreamily on his cheeks. All those handsome features, normally so severe, normally so stormy and scowly, are fully relaxed into a boyishly sweet expression in his sleep.

He barely looks twenty-nine like this, and you'd never guess he's a cop or a former solider. You'd never guess that he's known grief or fear or anger.

That he's haunted by memories of war. He looks so gentle and dear and young. So young. I try to get out of bed again, this time more because I need a moment to process my feelings. About this young man, about how tenderly and thoroughly he made love to me last night. 

And how he wanted to take care of me beyond sex and outside it, before he even knew what was wrong. _Do you...? Yes._ Even now, I'm not sure exactly what he was going to say, but it didn't matter.

Whatever he wanted to know, the answer was yes. _This is skidding off the rails awfully fast, Rey._ But I never do get a chance to process my feelings. I'm grabbed again, and this time Flip wakes up enough to put that massive erection to some good use. For two weeks, I am unbearable, abominably weak, and for two weeks, Flip and I fuck constantly. And everywhere. We fuck everywhere.

At my place. At his place. Twice more in the station---after the brass went home this time. In the backseat of his car, in my car, in the bathroom of an office building after interviewing an eye witness. 

And every night I fall asleep with his arms around me and his lips pressed to my neck. _I think you have to stop this---you have to end this pointless fling because it's going to hurt one or both of you in the end._

It's completely unprofessional to have sex with a coworker, and it's a fireable offense to do it on duty, and it's just.....unseemly....wrong all around. 

Rey Kenobi doesn't do unseemly things! It isn't me, this torrid, sex-fueled affair, and yet every time I convince myself to end it, something else happens and my resolve vanishes like it never existed in the first place. Flip will yank me into a searing, movie-worthy kiss or send me a heated gaze from the passenger seat of my car.

Or he'll rumble _Rey, baby_ in that husky, low growl of his, and nothing else will matter. Not our jobs or my reputation or seemliness. The only thing that matters is him and how close I can get my body to his in the next thirty-seconds. 

But despite the sex and the snuggling in bed at night and the occasional domestic moment of making coffee or dinner together, there's not another vulnerable moment like there was that night in the shower. I don't cry, he doesn't ask _do you...?_ , and we don't talk about our pasts to each other again. We have sex and talk about the case. Professional considerations aside, it should be perfect. Why isn't it perfect?

Why on earth do I keep thinking about that moment in the shower? Why do I keep wishing he'd finished his question? Keep holding that he'll ask it again?

My confusion isn't helped any by Hux, who's been trying to corner me into dinner for a few weeks now. Would I say yes if I weren't screwing Flip? _Should_ I still say yes?

I mean, Flip and I haven't defined what we are to each other, and it's not like he's the loquacious type and full of effusive raptures about how much he adores me. For all I know, that night in the shower was a fluke and I really am just a convenient lay for him. 

For all I know, I'm just a fun way to pass the time until something better comes along. But. But. Even though the entire thing is completely ridiculous, even though, I'm worse than foolish for carrying on with a man, who works for me, I can't bear to entertain the thought of another person while I'm with Flip. Maybe I'm just being too romantic and overly monogamous, or maybe it's some kind of transferred loyalty to Eric, who was the last cop I dated before Flip--but whatever the reason, I won't start something with Hux. I don't even want to.

I call him back and agree to dinner, deciding I owe him this conversation face-to-face. I won't tell him about Flip---certainly not---but I'll tell him there's someone else right now in my life.

It will be a hard conversation to have, but Hux will understand. I doubt he spent all of his three years in St. Louis pining for me, and surely he didn't expect to come back here and find me still pining for him. 

But now it's nearly time for that dinner--just a few hours away----and I still haven't told Flip that I'm going out with Hix. _He won't understand that if I tell him,_ I think to myself. 

But you know that he'd want to know about it anyway, I argue with myself, and then I sigh. I'm twenty-nine years old, and I'm obsessing over boy drama like I'm suddenly back in junior-high. What the hell has gotten into me?

With a sigh and a quick press of my fingertips against my forehead to help alleviate some of the pressure building there, I refocus on the files in front of me. I've been combing through them ever since our last two years ran dry. In a case into the file on the last burglary---the one where I first met Flip---and I'm clicking through the photos on my laptop when I hear a deep voice ask.

"Drywall?"

Startled but happy, I turn to see Flip leaning against the edge of my cubicle, looking like a cop calendar with his crossed arms showing off his biceps and forearms and his pretty mouth fitted into the thin crook that passes for a smile for him.

"Drywall?" I ask back, trying to think through the temporary gaze of electric lust and happiness that descends upon me every time that I see him.

He tilts his head at my desk. "You were staring at your laptop, muttering 'drywall, drywall' at the screen."

"Oh." I turn back to my desk to make sure a quick note while gesturing for him to come in. "I hadn't realized I was talking out loud to myself. How was the warehouse search? Did you find anything?"

"Nothing there," Flip says and takes a seat in the spare chair next to me. 

He brings the chair close enough that our knees touch under my desk, and I want to melt. I want to run my fingers through the cut hardness of his thigh up to the heavy cock currently pushing at his zipper. But I don't. But the temptation is agonizing. 

"Any chance they could have moved the televisions before you got there?" I ask, forcing myself to focus on the task at hand.

I sent Flip to check out a couple locations that had been used to hide stuff like this before. A shot in the dark, of course, but worth looking into. Flip shakes his head. "One warehouse is being renovated into lofts, and the place was crawling with a construction crew. No one I talked to had seen anything being moved in or out. The other was completely abandoned but had a few squatters staying inside. They swore up and down they hadn't seen any trouble."

"They would say that," I murmur, but I trust Flip's instincts---for now.

"And they drywall?" Flip asks. 

I frown back at the screen. "I'm not sure just yet. There's just something about all that drywall dust at the scene that keeps tugging at me. But don't worry, it will come to me."

"Mmm," Flip says, and from the way he says it, I can guess the word _come_ sent his mind in a very different direction than police work.

I'd roll my eyes, but that wouldn't be very fair of me since I've spent the last five minutes vaguely considering pulling him back into the meeting room for a quick round to help me last the rest of the day. The day that I'm---sigh---spending part of with Hux. 

Tell Flip. Tell him right now. Sure, he'll be pissed, but he'll be less pissed that if he finds out later. 

I open my mouth to speak, but Flip gets there first. "I have my niece's birthday party this evening," he says quickly, almost as if he's blurting it out. "It's nothing super formal, just a barbecue and cake at my sister's house, but I just thought you could come with me. And, um....you know..."

He looks down at his boots, suddenly bashful and boyish and so...un-Flip like. The first time I ever drove a car faster than one-hundred miles per hour, I was in academy and terrified beyond all reason.

Yet there was this moment as I accelerated---adrenaline screaming through my veins, and my stomach back where I left it at the starting line---when my heart floated in my chest out of sheer, exhilarated joy. I feel that now....with Flip Zimmerman. 

Flip's invitation to meet his family and the unusually shy way that he had asked---it makes me feel like I'm driving one hundred miles per hour, with my heart hammering fast and happy even as my body registers unheard of terror. Because I know what happens when you drive fast. You break hard and if you're not careful....you crash and burn. 

I can't meet his family tonight because I have dinner with Hux, and anyway, it would be ludicrous for me to even meet his family in the first place. How could I even introduce myself? As the co-worker he'd been jeopardizing his job with because we can't seem to wrangle our raging hormones under control?

As the helpless girl who caught this poor, innocent body in her claws? Jesus Christ. No. I can't meet his family and his parents, who will only awkwardly be a decade or so older than myself.

And I shouldn't meet them because we aren't a thing anyway. We are going to be together for long, because these flings never last, and then when his family doesn't see me again, they'll know for sure that I was the predatory sex-harpy taking advantage of their handsome son. 

All the euphoria, the heart-floating-in-my-chest, it just stops, like I really have mashed on the brakes with all of my weight. And I suddenly very much want to burst our crying. 

I glance at his face, with its red of embarrassment hope burnishing his cheeks, and I immediately hate myself for what I'm about to say and do. "Flip, I'd love to go but---"

"It's okay," he says, very fast with a shake of his head. "It's okay. I didn't really think you'd want to go anyway, and I only thought it would be an easy way to get dinner and stuff, so---"

He's literally killing me here. My cubicle has become the scene of a homicide. "Stop," I say, grabbing his hand and hating myself even more for the white lie that I'm about to tell him. "It's just that I've already made plans with a friend for dinner already. But, hey, listen, I will see you tonight at my place after? Just let yourself in through the garage if you get there before me."

"Sure," he says, and there's so much in his voice, so much that isn't normally there for this quiet, primal cop, and I think my heart is breaking.

And there's almost the scariest part of this. I've gotten to the point where his unhappiness is more painful than _my_ own. 

********

Hux and I meet at one of the understatedly elegant restaurants that suits us both so well, and it's as I'm walking in that my work phone rings. "Kenobi?" I answer after I fish it out of my purse.

"Hey," comes the person on the other end of the line. "This is Jessika in Dispatch. We just had a woman call in trying to speak with you. She says she works at one of the doctor's offices that's been robbed and needed to check something on the missing items report." 

I see Hux at a far table, already with a bottle of wine on the table, and I give him a small wave before I turn away. "Did she by any chance leave a number?"

"She did. I'll email it to you now, along with the call notes. She sounded pretty upset about something, but she only wanted to talk to you." 

That isn't unusual. Speaking to the detective on case is like speaking to the manager at a store--there's an imagined aura of authority cloaking the interaction. And I certainly wouldn't turn down the opportunity to talk to anyone directly. Our dispatchers are good, but there's a limit to what they'll be able to lift out of a conversation if they're not familiar with a case.

And at this point, I need every lead that I can get. After confirming that she'll email the details, I hang up with Jessika and then make my way over to Hux, who stands to greet me.

"Rey," he says warmly, taking my elbows and kissing me on the cheek.

It's shocking how unpleasant it feels, how very is feels to be kissed by someone who's not Flip, and I'm quiet as I take my seat, trying to process the tumult of troubled feelings and inevitable pairing of upbringing and profession. Two rich kids who caught a case of conscience and went into the field of justice instead of finance or medicine or literally anything else more lucrative? That's us.

We'd be able to kvetch about judges and defense attorneys while we shopped for antiques and took winery tours. But in the last few weeks, I've discovered I don't want that....if I ever really did.

"I understand, Hux, and three years ago I might have wanted to be that kind of partner," I say. "But that's not why I cam here tonight."

A hard anger passes over his features so quickly that someone less perspective might have missed it. But I catch it...easily. 

I catch it, and I'm suddenly beyond grateful that I'm not going to entwine my life with his. Not when his first response to rejection is anger. Not when all my cop senses are currently on high alert at the prospect of a man so much larger than me suffering from the side effects of a fragile ego. 

Fortunately, that ego appears to value public perception over personal slights, because he doesn't seem inclined to make a scene. Instead, he takes a deep pull from his wineglass and leans back in his seat. 

"Is there someone else?" he asks.

"There is." 

He looks off into the middle distance and then looks back to me after a long, pensive moment. "Why did you come to dinner tonight then, Rey?"

"I came because I respect you as a person and I thought this conversation deserved care and attention."

He sighs, rubbing his forehead, and then gives me a rueful kind of smile. "That's how you know we're getting to old to play these sort of games, by the way. Three years ago and you would've just DMed me on Twitter. Five years younger than that, and it would've been a passive-aggressive Snapchat story."

I laugh a little and so does he, and my tension slowly ratchets down. _He's taking it okay. It's going to be okay._

"I am sorry," I say. "I truly enjoyed the time we spent together before you moved. But then I met---" I stumble, almost saying Flip's name and only barely catching myself in time---"someone, and I'd like to see where things go."

Hux shakes his head, seeming sad. "I should've reached out to you earlier. It's my loss, Rey. I hope he makes you happy."

I don't miss the bitter edge in his tone, and my cop senses prickle again. Outwardly, he seems like he's adjusting quite well, but there's something emanating from him that makes me feel uneasy. I never ignore these instincts, and I feel abruptly grateful that I drove here on my own and don't have to rely on him for a ride home.

"Thank you, Hux." I say. "And yes, he does make me happy."

There must be have been too much truth in my tone, because there's more irritation in Hux's expression now. Luckily the waiter comes by with the check. Hix and I politely argue about who will take the bill---a pointless argument because the money isn't significant to either of us.

We agree to split it, and then we pay and make to leave. Hux catches my hand a last time after we stand up, and he kisses the back of it. "I do hope that we can stay friends."

"Of course," I say, but I very much doubt it.

In fact, I'll probably make sure to put some distance between us....at least until his bitterness fades and I sense he's safe to be around again. I get in my car and text Flip.

_I really need you to tonight, Flip. Please. RK._

And I mean sex---always that---but I think I might also mean more. I need his chest to bury my face in and his big hands petting my hair. I need to tell him everything about Hux and apologize to him for not telling him sooner. 

And I think I need to know that he only wants me. I think I need to be spanked, mounted, and fucked. I think I need all Flip's intensity centered on marking my body as his. I think I need my choices anchored in this raw connection Flip and I can't seem to shake. I'm pondering all of this as I drive home, chewing over the dinner and uncomfortably big feelings for Flip, and I'm so wrapped up in my own thoughts that I don't notice anything different when I park my car om the garage and walk inside of my kitchen.

"So....did you gave a good time?" says a low voice from behind me. 


	11. Chapter 11

FLIP ZIMMERMAN

I almost didn't believe it when I saw them through the window. The restaurant they were at is this fancy mixed-use development thing---the same complex that houses the bakery that made my niece's cake. I volunteered to pick up her cake so my sister could focus on getting everything else ready, and then I saw Rey's car---with the license plate number I couldn't help but memorize the first time I saw it. 

I thought I'd pop in and say hi because that's where I'm at right now. I'm at the point where two hours away from her is bone-cutting agony, and I needed a good fix. 

I'd just pop in, fake a smile to whatever martini-drinking girlfriend she was with, and then lean in to kiss her on the cheek. I'd smell her hair and her skin as I whispered what I was going to do to her later tonight. Where I was going to fuck her. 

How hard she would cum. But there was no martini-swilling girlfriend. Instead, she sat across the table from Hux---fucking _Hux_ \--who looked handsome as always in his "only the best from JoS. A. Bank" sort of way.

And they were talking. And smiling at one another. And drinking wine. And the very _rightness_ of seeing them in there together tore through me like a shotgun blast going off.

Because of course, Rey looked like a movie star with her expensive clothes and soft chestnut hair and those high-heels that give her feet that glamorous Barbie-doll style arch. And of course, she looked like she belonged there with a man who knew what kind of wine to order, what kind of art events and charities to make small talk about.

Fuck. And she lied to me about it. Double fuck. I should have left immediately. I should have stepped away and shelved this for a later discussion, but I didn't. I stayed and watched for another ten minutes or so. jealousy and hurt pounding away through my veins.

I stayed until my sister called out and asked me what was taking so long with her daughter's birthday cake. 

It wasn't a surprise that I wasn't much in the mood for a party after that. I went, gave little Abigail her cake and her present and a big bear hug, and then decided to go home. Which was when I got her text message. 

_I really need you tonight, Flip. Please. RK._

I leaned my head back against the driver's seat and tried to talk myself out of it. I could cancel. I could tell her I wasn't feeling well, or that my sister needed help with the babies, or even that I saw her out with another man and didn't feel like fucking tonight. Which would be a total lie. I want to fuck her now more than ever. 

I want to feel her body pressed against mine. Feel her mouth over my own. I need to reassure myself with thrusts and moans and searching fingers that I'm not imagining what's between us. That she is still...mine. 

_No. No fucking. Not until you've figured this all out._

So, I'm at her house because she asked and because it needs to be figured out. Even though the thought of _figuring it out_ sends fear bolting through me like jagged sparks of lightning. 

I paced through her sleekly renovated bungalow until I can make sense-of my feelings. Until I can admit to myself that _falling in love_ somehow turned into _being in love_ without me realizing it, and now I have to be a man and deal with it. I have to admit to myself that us ending would destroy me. She has to know how I feel about her. 

But I won't be a dick about it. I'm here because she asked me to be. I'll tell her I know about Hux, and then I'll tell her how I feel. The choice is hers. I've been here before, after all, with Mara and her reverse harem of jackasses who worked in cell phone stores or did car detailing or whatever it was that kept them there and available and not off fighting in a war. I survived that with a woman I thought I might marry.

I could definitely survive this. Even if it doesn't feel like it. Even if it feels like I already love Rey an infinite amount more than I ever loved Mara. 

_Face it, Zimmerman. You're in way too deep. Deeper than you've ever been before._

When Rey walks through the front door, I don't mean to scare her but that's what happens. I speak, and she spins around in a sharp turn, her hand dropping to her hip as if she's reaching for her duty weapon. 

Shit, I'm such a dirt-bag. I take a step back, my hands in the air like a suspect. "Christ, Flip," she says, her hand falling away from her hip and her posture going from alert to its usual straight-backed poise. "You frightened me! I could've killed you just now!"

"I'm sorry," I say, and I mean it sincerely. "I didn't mean to...loom."

She sets her purse down on the counter and presses her fingertips against her forehead for a minute. "No. I-I should have remembered you might get here before me. I was just distracted, I guess."

 _By Hux, you mean?_ I want to ask, but I'm not going to. If I'm brutally honest with myself, we've never talked about being exclusive with one another. We've never set any parameters around our relationship. Yes, fine, I'm still jealous as fuck, but I know I don't really have the right to be.

But I've underestimated Rey and her powers of observation. She gives me a once-over with those hazel eyes, with one delicate eyebrow arched and her lips pursed, and then she says, "You know I was with Hux?"

God help any suspect who so much as tries to lie to her. They'd be fucking dead right where they stood. 

"Yes," I say bluntly. "I know."

She looks at me almost like...like I don't know. Like she's disappointed. But disappointed in what? In the fact that I know? That I admitted it? Am I not being as calm as I think I can?

I take another step back, trying to reassure her that I'm not going to give her a hard time about it. That I'm not going to try to use my body to intimidate her. Her gorgeous, pressed-together lip grow more disapproving by the minute. Does she want me to talk more? 

I don't trust myself to talk more. I don't trust myself enough to blurt out loud _you're mine, you're all fucking mine,_ drop to my knees, shove up her skirt, and prove it to her with my mouth. Prove that her body already knows who it needs, and that it's not Mr. Men's Wearhouse. It's _me._ _All_ of me. 

"I thought you'd be...I don't know....a little bit more jealous," she murmurs, still studying my face.

"I _am_ fucking jealous," I say tightly and then snap my mouth closed so fast that my teeth click. _Don't be a dick, don't be a dick, don't be a dick._

She then takes a step forward. Another and then another while I stay completely still, unsure of what she's actually thinking. "Prove it, then," she says, folding her arms across her chest. 

"Excuse me?"

"Prove to me that you're jealous."

It's like I'm in some alternate dimension---one where my primal, Freudian id makes all the rules. "I'm not exactly sure what you're asking me here."

She sighs, suddenly looking very much like an impatient schoolteacher, which is not helping the angry lust rolling in my belly in the least. "What do you want me to do right now, Flip?"

"I don't--"

Another step forward. "You want to screw me in the hells I wore to dinner with him? You want to handcuff me to the bed so that I can't leave until you say that I can?" She presses a firm hand against my chest. "You want me to see your cum on my stomach? Or my tits?"

Her hand then drops down to my belt, and I catch her wrist before it can go somewhere even father down my body. I honestly can't tell if she's in earnest, goading me or just plain messing with me right now. 

"Stop it, Rey."

"Why are you asking me to stop, Flip?" she asks. "Is it because you actually don't want this? Or is it because you doubt I'm really asking you for it?"

"Of course I doubt it," I say through clenched teeth. "What I really want would terrify the living shit out of you."

She then gives a beautiful, rich-girl scoff. "Try me, Zimmerman." 

I lift a hand and slide it through her silky-soft hair, fisting it at the base of her neck and holding her head back just enough that she won't be able to move without it disrupting her balance. 

And then I lean in so my lips brush the shell of her ear as I speak. "You're right, I do want to fuck you in these heels. And in handcuffs. I want to fuck your mouth, and then I want to bend you over my knee and redden your perfect peach-ass until you think of me every single time you sit down. I want to take you everywhere in your body--and I mean _everywhere_ , Rey---until you feel as owned by me as I'm owned by you."

Confident my little speech has frightened some sense into her, I let go of her hair and pull back. But instead of seeing her face tight with fear, I meet eyes with pupils blown wide with lust and blushing cheeks and her tongue working at her lower lip in a kind of fervent anticipation. 

"You feel like I own you?' she whispers, searching my face.

"Isn't it obvious?" I ask.

She just keeps blinking up at me, like she can't believe it. Like she can't believe I feel it, and I trace that doubtful mouth with my fingers as I speak. "And I know we may be young, but I know what I want, Rey and what I want is you. I want to make you mine."

Her hand goes back to my belt, toying with it, but her eyes stay glued to mine. "Then make me yours, Flip. Right now. I won't break, I'm not---" a small smile here, as if at some private joke---"I'm not a china doll."

I consider her, reading her body's signs. Her nipples poking through her blouse trying to get my attention. Her pulse thrumming at the base of her neck. The blush just below her collarbone that disappears down into that sexy silk shirt. She likes it when I'm possessive of her. Jealous even. I remember that from the first time we had sex at the station.

But this is something different. "You're asking me to claim you," I say, making absolutely sure that we're both on the same page. "While I'm angry and hurt and jealous. While I want to be rough with you."

"Yes," she moans, pressing her breasts against my chest as her hand wraps around my denim-clad erection. "I do."

And what's all I can take. All the permission I need. I scoop her up in my arms and sling her over my shoulder, just like the Viking I wanted to be a few weeks ago, and smack her ass hard as I walk toward her bedroom. 

I feel her stomach hitching where if presses against my shoulder, and for a moment I wonder if she's crying or trying to speak, but then I hear--she's laughing. She's happy. It's a roller-coaster laugh, the kind of laugh that's pulled out of you by adrenaline and joy and terror all mixed together, and I take it as extra confirmation that she's completely on board. 

I still say over my shoulder. "Stay stop when you need to stop, baby."

Her voice is full of smug cop pride when she answers. "Fine, but I promise you that I won't need to." 

I don't think she will either. She's tough as nails, way tougher than anyone gives her credit for her, and I think under all that good breeding and money is a woman who wants to test her limits. 

Who wants the edgy, filthy, primitive challenges no one else has known to give her before....until me. But I do. I know. I know exactly what she needs. I drop her onto her bed without warning, without delicacy, without even flicking on a light, and when I fall on her like a predator in the dark. I nip at her jaw and throat until she whimpers, and then I eat her mouth with stark, brutal kisses until both of us are breathing hard and my dick is leaking all over the inside of my jeans.

Taking both her wrists in one hand, I pin them above her head as I grind into her clothed pussy with merciless hips. "Tell me, how much did this cost?" I say, working a hand between us to pluck at her silk blouse. "Two hundred? Three hundred?"

"Three-hundred." she pants.

It'll be hell on my bank account to replace, but so fucking worth it. I immediately let go of her wrists and move up so that I'm straddling her hips, and then I take one side of the blouse in each hand.

She's wearing it in her usual way, unbuttoned to expose just the right amount of décolletage, and the fashionable part of the placket gives me just give the right handholds to grab and tear the blouse apart. 

It's a well made shirt, and it takes plenty of strength to rip the buttons from their moorings and send them scattering across the bed, but I manage, revealing a lacy bra and Rey's stomach, both ivory-pale in the moonlight streaming through her window.

She looks wrecked like this, wrecked already, with her shirt rumpled and torn around her breasts and her hair mussed and her lips swollen from my attention.

I run my fingers over the swells of her lace-covered tits and down to her quivering belly. "All this is mine," I tell her immediately.

"Yes," she says. 

I move off her. I find the zipper to her skirt and yank it down with impatience, peeling the fabric from her body and tossing it on her floor like I don't know it probably also cost an unthinkable amount of money.

And before I straddle her again, I allow myself to appreciate the vision she makes like this, with her white garter-belt highlighting the nip of her waist and her nude stockings giving off a faint sheen in the moonlight. With her heels still curving her feet into sexy, chic arches. She looks expensive. Cultured. 

And I'm the man who gets to bite and bind and dishevel it all. I'm the man who gets to make her mine. I remove the remains of the blouse from her and then straddle her again to knot her crossed wrists in the fabric. There's plenty of it, and it's soft and thick enough that I can bind her tightly, and I do, relishing the jagged exhale she gives when she tests the knot and finds it unyielding.

"Now," I say, climbing off her. "Let's see what the queen keeps in her little toy box, hmm?"

With as much sex as we've had in the last few weeks, we still haven't dipped into her toy collection, although I know it's in her end table, and I know she must have some things in there that are at least mildly shocking, because she blushes whenever I ask her about what she has.

Well, there's no time like the present to find out, I guess. I leave her trussed up on the bed while I make my way to her nightstand and pull open the drawer. I growl instantly when I see what's inside.

"You are one dirty little girl," I say, holding up a cool metal of a jewel ended butt plug for her to see. I immediately toss it on the bed, along with the bottle of lube she has stashed inside the drawer. "So fucking dirty. I knew you were. I knew you were keeping all kinds of secret filth wrapped up in all that pretty silk of yours."

*********

She makes a needy noise and drops her bound hands to her stomach, and I only realize why when I see her fingers sliding under her panties to get at her pussy. I'm back on the bed in an instant, pinning her arms above her head again.

"Bad girl," I tell her. "You're going bad things when you should be trying to be very good for me right now."

"Just make me cum first," she demands, trying to rock her hips against my erection. "Make me cum, and then I'll be so good for you, Flip." 

"Nice try," I rasp, biting her breasts until she listens. "You are mine right now, which means your orgasms are mine too. And you're not going to cum until I know you're very, _very_ sorry."

"S-Sorry for what?" she asks breathlessly.

"For making me want you so damn much. Now _shhh,_ and let me take control."

I go back to the drawer and riffle through all the interesting items in there. In addition to the jeweled butt-plug, she has a vibrating one, along with a very realistic dildo---which I'm boorishly proud of being bigger than---and three different vibrators. I pick a vibrator and then join her on the mattress where she's currently trying to rub her thighs together for friction.

I pinch her nipple. "Knock it off."

"Make me cum and I will."

I pinch again, giving it a tiny twist through the lace this time. She gasps and then moans. "Flip, please," she begs. "Just once, and then you can do whatever you want."

I don't even bother responding to her ridiculous demand. I'm already too wrapped up in how _I_ want her to cum. How I want to stake my claim all over her body, until it's all mine, mine, mine. 

I then take the vibrator, turn it on, and lie on my side next to her, propped up on one elbow so that I can watch her reaction as I buzz it over her nipples and navel. As I run it along her inner thighs and ghost it over her folds until her pleas start falling out of her mouth faster than her breaths.

She'll do anything, she says, anything I want. She'll suck me, jerk me, take me anywhere in her body, she'll do my any depraved thing that I ask.....as long as I let her cum right now. So long as I ease her misery just a little.

"No," I say simply.

But I do find her clit with the vibrator and give her a little taste---just a little hope---before I click the vibrator off and deny her again.

She writhes on the bed, trying to free her wrists from the blouse I tied around them, which is when I flip her onto her belly and prop her up on her elbows and knees. "I kind of like the thought of you with these plugs in your drawer, you dirty girl," I say.

I unhook her garters and garter-belt and fling them to the floor. Her panties are lace, real and delicate, and it takes literally nothing for me to rip them clean off of her. And finally, I get the view I've been wanting all day. A cunt so wet it glistens in the near darkness and the tight star of her asshole above it.

I press a thumb against that star now, testing its tight resistance. "I love the thought of you so desperate for it here that you probably do it to yourself. That you squirm in bed alone at night, just needing it. My filthy baby."

She's moaning now and trying to push back against my touch. God, I could sit here and look at her---all exposed for me---like this till the day I die. I hope I get that fucking chance, too.

"Have you really been fucked here, Rey? With a big, ass cock?"

"N-No," she answers, still seeking out more pressure and friction from me. "Just with my toys. But I-I want it. Wanted it for so long." 

"So none of these rich boys knew what to do with you, did they? They didn't know how shameless you really, truly are. How much you need to sin." I palm her cunt, feeling just how wet my words have made her, and she shudders at the contact.

"Flip," she pleads.

"Baby, you know the only answer you're going to get is _when I'm good and fucking ready_ , so instead of asking, why don't you just tell me how you really feel? What's happening right now inside that amazing mind of yours?"

"I-I feel like my skin is too tight for my body," she manages, still trying to buck against my hand. 

I use my other hand to toy with her clit a little to reward her for obeying my command for a change. It excites me...thrills me....makes me ten times hornier than I feel like I already am in this moment. God, I'm going to fuck explode and I'm not even fucking her yet. 

"My cunt feels hollow. My nipples hurt, they're so fucking hard. I feel like I haven't cum in a thousand years!"

Quite frankly, I feel the exact same way, with her wrists tied and her pussy against my palm, and I have a dizzying moment when I realize that my anger and my jealousy have turned into something else entirely, something different. Like desire---but darker, because it's the desire to see her fall apart for me like I'm falling apart for her.

Like possession---but better because she's begging to be possessed. If I had to call it anything, I'd say it was love. Rough and elemental, the only love I'm capable of giving freely. 

Ah fuck. I can't spin this game out for much longer. Bot when the urge to claim her and to love her is pounding through me so hard that my cock throbs in time with it. I take the plug in my hand, admiring its weight and its cute little jewel at the end, before I trace the cool tip of it down the curve of her spine. She shivers.....ever so slightly.

"Plug first," I say. "Then me. And when I'm inside your ass for the first time---that's when you can cum." She gasps when she feels the cool drizzle of lube on her and again when I add the extra coolness of the plug pressed against her rim. "You okay?" I ask her, meaning all of it. "Do you need me to stop?"

"No, no," she says. "Just---I usually warm it up first."

I test it with my finger and find that the metal is already warming up against her skin, so I decide I can push her a little here. "I'll give you something very warm in just a minute," I tell her and begin working her rosebud open. 

She breathes out and relaxes against me, but it still takes some coaxing to get the plug inside, and then a long, quavering moan as the widest part of the bulb stretches her open. Once it's fully seated in her ass, the jewel winking sweetly between her cheeks, I reward her with the vibrator on her clit, letting her get almost to the brink before I pull back again.

"Flip!" she cries out, frustrated.

"I know, baby, I know," I soothe. I run a gentling hand over her ass and up her back, petting her. "You're being so good for me right now. So good in letting me have what I want."

"Oh God," she says, rolling her face into her forearms. "If I don't cum soon, I'm going to fucking die!"

"Then you better be ready for heaven because we aren't done yet."

We play like this for for a few more minutes---some buzzing on her clit, some toying with the plug until her entrance is kneaded into pliancy and ready for my cock.

She's a moaning wet mess with slick arousal now coating the outside of her pussy and her inner thighs, and when I see that, I feel like I've been kicked in the stomach. _How am I going to last long enough to make her feel claimed?_

Fuck, I'll be lucky if I last another minute. I climb off the bed and move in front of her so she can see me undress and also the tempting shine of her wet cunt is out of view. She watches me peel off my shirt and lick off my boots. She watches me unzip and sees my cock push through my fly with wetness all over the blunt tip of it, all for her. Her eyes are huge in the darkness, and her tongue can't seem to stop darting out to lick her lower lip.

As if she's desperate to taste me. I'm super light-headed at the thought, and also, Jesus Christ, light-headed that she's here with _me_ \---dumb, young _me._ She wants me, and I'm going to give her everything in return. 

Once she truly knows she's all mine, that is. "Let me see you lube up," she whispers. "I want to see it."

I decide I don't have any objection to this, and I let her watch me as I coat my shaft and the big head with lots of slick lube. I give myself a few more strokes than necessary because it feels so fucking good to squeeze against the ache building deep in my groin.

"I'll go extra slow," I promise as I mount the bed behind her and remove the plug. "You tell me if you need me to stop." 

"Just hurry, Flip," she says in that trembling, needy voice that kills me to resist. 

Resist I must, though, because ideas like _fast_ and _rough,_ don't belong anywhere near anal---at least not for the first couple dozen times or so---and I'm determined only to be a caveman in the ways that are fun for us both. 

I go slowly, knowing that I'm bigger than the plug, that there's no narrow base at the end to give her relief. I coax my plump crown past her rings, smoothing my hands along her bottom and back as I do, and then I give her a moment to adjust. 

"I feel like you've gotten bigger since I last---" she says, a touch grumpily, as I slide forward yet another inch.

"No, baby, you're just small here. Let me in."

She takes a deep breath and forces herself to relent against my intrusion, but it's still a labor of love to get in even deeper. Still a few hot, urgent moments to get in all the way to the hilt. But then I am, and the sensation of her so tight and hot and smooth around me has all my muscles clenching and rigid against my impending orgasm. Her first, her first, her fucking first. 

I reach for the vibrator and find her clit with it. "You can cum now, Rey," I say. "Anytime you'd like."

"You don't have to sound so gracious about it." she mumbles, but I can already feel her tightening around me, see her hips trying to chase the delicious rumbles of the toy. 

I can see the muscles in her thighs trembling and hear the whine building up in the back of her throat. I turn up the vibrator's strength at the same moment I begin thrusting in short, grinding motions to maximize the indirect pressure against her G-spot. Her reaction is instantaneous. 

"Oh God, _oh God, oh God,_ " she whimpers, and the whimpering dies off into a series of sexy-as-fuck, animalistic grunts. "I'm cumming! _I'm cumming, oh God,_ Flip!"

*********

She dissolves. She's shaking, sweating, screaming her entire body spasming around my cock as she kicks her stockinged feet against the bed and wails her pleasure into her forearm. I feel like a goddamn _fucking_ King right now.

And she....she is my fucking Queen. There's could be nothing better than this feeling....this overwhelming feeling of completion, of love....it feels so right. 

With each squeeze of her climax clamps down hard on my erection massaging it, yanking me closer to ejaculation, and I can barely wait for her tremors to subside before I'm flipping her over onto her back and pushing into her ass again.

"Fuck, it's so damn tight," I hiss through my teeth.

Her pussy is so wet against my skin as I curl my body over hers to fuck her harder, and I can feel her beaded nipples against my chest and her goose bumps against my own.

I meet her gaze and take in her wrecked, dazed expressions---hooded eyes and parted lips--and I know that I made her that way. I fucked her so thoroughly that she looks like she can't even remember her own name.

I gave her exactly what she needed, every filthy, dirty little minute of it and from the sound of things.....she fucking loved it. All of it.

"Look at me when I fucking cum inside you," I order her. She obeys, her eyes so soft and adoring up at me, even while I'm inside her ass, that I suddenly fall in love with her all over again. "Look at me while I take you to a place where no one else has. While I claim you."

"Flip," she whispers, and I feel her start to cum again. "I'm yours....I'll _fucking_ yours, Flip Zimmerman!"

Those are the words that push me over the edge. The fist of pleasure that was clenching tightly at the base of my spine finally unclenches, and my orgasm tears through me like a tornado.

A hot wave of cum spills out of my cock and then another and then another, until I'm nothing but jerking, throbbing spurts of ecstasy. Slick and scorching jolts of unraveled male. I empty my balls inside her and then manage to arrange us so that I can collapse on my side, spooning her, with her tucked to my chest and my cock still buried inside her.

I want the intimacy of it for another moment longer, just while we come down and catch our breaths. Then I'll untie her and we can both clean up. 

I stroke along her bare arm, reveling in the silky softness of her skin. A cloud of dark hair is in front of me, giving off some kind of expensive floral scent. Her ass is plump and pressed against my hips, and even as I'm softening I can feel her body give rhythmic aftershocks.

I think _I'm_ the one who is in heaven now. "You okay?" I ask.

"Very okay." She sighs in contentment. "I feel very claimed now." 

"Good. Because you're all mine now. Not his."

She stretches out a little, and I slip out of her, wincing at the cool air of the room. This is my cue to untie her, but I have to mourn it a little because elegant Rey Kenobi looks so fucking good trussed up with her own shredded blouse.

"I was never his, you know," she says as I roll her to her back and start unknotting her shirt. "I agreed to dinner to tell him that nothing was going to happen between us."

I pause my work and search her face. She's telling me the truth. "Really?" I ask anyway, needing to hear it. 

"Really. I don't want him, Flip, and I think now maybe I never did, even three years ago. He was just there and he made sense to me....at the time, and....I was too lonely not to try with anyone else but him. He made me feel....better about myself, even if it was only just temporarily."

I wonder if I make sense to her. If I'll ever make sense to her, my background and of course, my job. I wonder if I'm something she's just trying out, out of loneliness and nothing else. God, I hope not---because I fucking love her and I don't want to lose her to someone else, not now, not ever.

We belong together in every sense of the word. And I mean every....single....sense...of....the...word. And I'll be damned if I let her go now and I believe she finally feels the same way about me in return. 

"Why didn't you just tell me this earlier?"

A naughty, kitten-like smile formed on her face. "I just wanted t see what you'd do about it once I said something."

"You dirty little girl. And how did he take it when you told him?" I ask, finally unlooping the silk and throwing it on the floor. I grab her hands ands tart massaging them. 

She makes a noise of pleasure at my efforts. "Outwardly fine, honestly. But inwardly....I think he was angry and so jealous. Bitter, even. It makes me nervous just talking about it now with you."

Her words cut through me like a knife, and I swallow, forcing myself to focus on doing the best possible job anymore can do massaging a hand. "And." I say, trying not to sound suddenly suffused with panic and self-loathing, "is that any different than how I acted towards you tonight?"

"Oh, Flip, of course it is." She sits up, presses her hand against my jaw.

I slowly meet her gaze, feeling miserable. "How?"

"Because I asked you to."

"Oh." _Well, that makes a lot of sense._

"And you asked me back. It's just that fucking simple, Officer Zimmerman. Now, let's go and take ourselves a nice long, hot shower."


	12. Chapter 12

REY KENOBI

I wake up in a cloud of happiness so thick that even breathing feels like an act of pure joy, and in my drowsy-like state of mind, I can't quite remember exactly why---that is---until I stretch, of course, and my well-abused internal muscles fuss and shout at me. Oh yes, that's right.

Flip Zimmerman. Last night. After the anal and a nice long hot shower, there was more sex---the gentler, softer kind this time, although the orgasms that followed it were no more gentle for it.

And then we fell asleep snuggled together, spooning as I like to do, with my head pillowed on his big bicep and his long legs tangled with mine. A low male rumble comes from behind me, letting me know that Flip is awake, and I feel him stretch a little and then seek out the back of my neck with his mouth. 

"Good morning, baby," he says in a sleepy voice. 

I shiver at the touch of his lips to my sensitive nape, and he notices---because he's a good cop and notices everything---and then kisses me there yet again while his hand seeks out a nipple to toy with.

"Did you sleep well?" he asks.

"I'll say....yes I did. I _really_ did." I stretch and roll over into his arms so I can look up into his face. "In fact, that was probably the best sleep that I've had in a while."

"I'm glad," he smiles. 

In the fresh morning sunlight and having just woken up, his face is open and boyish, giving him a nearly ten year age different, his chocolate brown eyes shimmering with molten-hot sin. The place between my thighs tightens at the promise that's there. 

"Shit, you're so fucking beautiful, Rey," he breathes, ducking his head to kiss my breasts and belly. "So _fucking_ beautiful. I love you so much."

 _I love you so much. Love._ A tidal wave of ice-cold water crashes over me, and I'm choking on my own panic. Drowning. Dying inside. _No. No. He couldn't have said those words. He couldn't have just....said them._

Like they were no big deal at all. Like they were beyond self-evident. Flip lifted his head. "Rey? Are you okay? You went tense all of a sudden."

"Y-You said you loved me...just now." My voice sound strangled even to myself.

His handsome face looks so adorably confused, and my heart twists in tight knots. "Of course I love you," he says, puzzled. "What did you think all that was last night, huh? A moment of fleeting heated-passion."

I pull my lower lip between my teeth, distressed. His expression goes from puzzled to something else. Something wary. Watchful.

"I said I was claiming you," he says slowly. "Making you mine. What did you think that meant?"

Excellent question. Even more excellent because didn't I realize last night that I wanted only him, that I was falling for him--and doesn't that mean that I feel the exact same way back? Doesn't that mean that I'm in love with him too? Oh my fucking God, I'm in love with him. 

I can't breathe. I can't speak. I can't even think straight. The tidal wave is everywhere and I'm all cold, flailing panic. I push him away and quickly sit up, needing space, needing...a moment to just fucking think,

"Rey," he says, letting me move away but not letting me wriggle out of answering his question. "Tell me what you _think_ this is between us. What we have." 

"It's supposed to be just a sex thing." I say, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes. "Just sex, just some fun. That's it."

He takes my wrists and gently tugs my hands down so that I have to meet his gaze. "This isn't _just_ anything, baby. Not between us. This is real. In fact, it's about as _real_ as it can possibly get."

I search those soft brown eyes, so strong and young and sure. "Yeah, and that's exactly what I'm afraid of," I whisper.

His jaw his tight. "Why?"

That he even has to ask reminds me of how new and naïve he is, that the unfairness of it all, the stupid, pointless waste of it cracks me wide open. 

"Because this can't go anywhere, Flip! It never can! You're just starting out, you have your entire life ahead of you, and you are going to find your wife and marry her and have lots of babies, and all of that is still going to be after several years of fucking anything that moves! I'm not going to be the reason that you miss out on all of that!"

If I thought his face was tight before, it's nothing compared to now. I can see the muscles working along the sharp line of his jaw and around the sculpted corners of his mouth, like he's working very hard not to shout.

"You don't want me to _miss out,_ " he repeats. "What the hell does that supposed to mean, Rey?"

"Right," I say, even though as I say it, something twists inside me, hard. 

I know what I just said is true and I know it's necessary, but God, it feels uncommonly depressing to think about. Flip's life after me. Him falling madly in love and marrying someone else and---Oh God, that fucking hurts too much for me to think about it.

"You mean fucking other people," he says flatly. And of course.... _that._ "So let me understand, you'd be totally okay with me sleeping with other women who aren't you?" he clarifies in a bitter, awful voice. "You'd sleep just fine at night saying goodbye and knowing that I've found a new place for my cock."

I can't help it--I wince slightly. Because deep down, I hate it. _I fucking hate it._ I hate the thought pf any other woman getting to see the dark line of hair arrowing down from his navel or the way his long eyelashes rest on his cheeks right after he comes.

I loathe the thought of anyone else knowing the flex and clench of his ass as he fucks...or the hard lengths of his thighs straining as he gets ridden....or the rough, make authority of those big hands that grab and hold firmly and squeeze as he makes love. But most of all, I hate the thought of someone else using his bicep as a pillow.

Knowing the warm fan of his breath in their hair. Getting to wake up to sleepy soft brown eyes already blazing with a heated possession. 

And I suddenly realize that I can't meet those soft brown eyes now as I think about all this. _Hating it doesn't change anything,_ I quickly remind myself. He's still a cop, and he's still my coworker. This is all still so wrong. 

Flip catches my chin with his fingers and forces me to look at him. "Is it really such a huge thing? Us being co-workers and all? We're not the first people in the world to bend and break the rules about how we feel about each other? Because it's not to me, and if anyone says anything to you about it, I'll tell them as much." His gaze then darkens. "Or more."

The noise that comes out of my mouth is a sour, scoffing noise that I'd ordinarily be appalled at making. "What are you going to do, Flip? Beat the living-shit out of every single person who calls me out on this?" He starts to object, but I go on. "Are you going to shake up every single person you stares at us, wondering if I'm your sister or a cousin? Walk around with a sandwich board telling people to fuck off?"

His eyes narrowed now, and I feel the heat of that cop gaze scrutinizing me, and I sincerely hate it. I hate that he's examining me while I'm shredded with fear and mess with feelings that I didn't even ask for.

Rey Kenobi isn't supposed to be shredded or messy---I'm always contained and cool. Icy, just like the rest of the department says that I am. And not being icy when I most need to be is infuriating. I toss my head away from Flip's fingers like an agitated filly.

"And what are you going to say to yourself, Flip? In a year? Or five? In twenty? When you've thrown away your life chasing something ridiculous instead of living it the way you should?"

I'm then pinned down to the bed before I can blink, two-hundred pounds of pissed-off cop looming over me and pressing my body firmly into the mattress. "You are _not_ ridiculous," Flip growls. "And you're not allowed to say that shit about yourself. Not while I'm around. Got it?"

Despite everything, the insane chemistry between us is setting my skin aflame. I can feel my nipples pebble between us, his cock go rigid and hot in the notch between my legs, both our hearts hammering hard against our chests as if they're to trade places.

I want him to kiss me so badly. I want him to eat my mouth like he's starving and then fuck me screaming into the bed. 

Flip looks like he very much wants the same thing, his arms trembling where he holds himself above me and his eyes dropping to my mouth like he can't decide whether he wants to kiss me or shove his cock down my throat. 

I moan, and his controls breaks---for an instant. He drops his mouth onto mine for a crashing, ragged kiss, but before I can even begin to kiss him back, he's gone. He's off the bed, staring at me, naked, his denied erection dark and bobbing between his legs. 

He ignores it and bites out, "We're not doing that."

"Do what?"

"Fuck the fight away," he says shortly. "That's not going to help anything here."

"Only because it can't be helped, Flip."

He ducks his head, muscles popping in his jaw, but he doesn't argue my point. Which leaves me feeling a little stung, although, I'm not even sure why, given that I started this fight in the first place.

And I'm not even sure _what_ I feel anymore, actually, just that it's a million different things all at once. Like maybe a secret part of my mind was hoping that he'd keep trying to convince me that we could somehow overcome this. But it becomes evident with each second that passes, we can't.

"Look, I can't help this, Rey," he says finally. "I can't help what I feel for you and if you're asking me to be sorry for it, then I'm sorry but I can't do that. I feel what I feel."

"I know that," I say. "But it's not just that, Flip."

"Oh," he says, his posture stiffening even more. "That's right. It's the fucking badge."

I blink, and in that blink, I see my dead fiancé's sightless stare and an ocean of blood. I sigh. "Yes."

"You're a cop too, you know," he says. No more like accuses. 

"Exactly." I get to my feet now as well, which maybe it's a mistake because it only serves to highlight how much taller he is than me, but I don't care. "I already carry all the fear and the trauma for myself over that. I can't carry it for another person, too. I can't wait up every single night wondering if this will be the night you don't come back home. I can't be the one waiting on that phone call, Flip. I just....can't."

"Are you saying you don't worry now?" he asks, taking a step forward. "Are you saying because it's only been a few weeks, because we haven't put labels on anything you wouldn't give a shit if I lived or died?"

My mouth drops open at these words. _Of course not,_ I want to sputter but he keeps on going before I can even open my mouth to argue against it. 

"Because maybe if you feel that way, but if you don't think I'm already in so deep that I wouldn't be in fucking agony if you were hurt, then think again."

I'm staring up at him---defensive and confused---and whatever he sees in my face is not the right answer because he reaches down for his clothes and starts yanking them on in jerky, vicious motions that make me suddenly desperate to take back everything I've just said to him.

"Jesus, Rey," he mutters, pulling his T-shirt over hos head. "You can't just freeze out everything, you know. And I'll be damned if I'll let you do it to me."

"Where are you going?" I ask as he shoves his feet in his boots. "You can stay. We can...talk." 

He then shoots me a dark look. "If I stay here, we're not going to talk."

"I'm okay with that," I whisper to him.

He then gives me a cheerless laugh. "But of course you are. I'm good enough for you to fuck, but that's it, right?"

Irritation stabs through me, fast and sharp. "I never said that, Flip!"

"That's just it," he says, buttoning his pants. "You didn't have to." He gets to the doorway, swiping up his keys and wallet off the dresser and then turning around to face me. 

The morning sunlight pouring in from the living room outlines his hewn, prefect form in a hazy glittering gold. He's hurt and I realize that it's me who has done this to him. No, no, Flip, I didn't mean any of it---but I know deep down, what's done is done.

"Here's what I can't figure out," he says with a glare that raises the hairs along my arms. "How can you say that you're afraid of having your heart broken if you can't even admit that you have a heart at all?"

It's a fair question, and it lands with a punch to the gut. I stagger backward a step and sit heavily on my bed, unable to meet his eyes. And then he leaves without saying another word. He leaves me naked and alone and searching for an answer to a question I should have asked myself the moment we first met. 

*******

It's the weekend, and since Flip is on my mini-task force of two, he has the weekend off as well. But he doesn't call that night or the next day. He doesn't text or even stop by. I don't reach out to him either.

Instead, I catch up on work email and a few other cases that I've had to shelve while I've focused on the burglaries. I go grocery shopping. I do yoga class. I call my parent's, who've Retired in France, and we catch up on the last couple of weeks. They beg me to come out and stay with them for a month. 

They drop little subtle hints about how much fun their little apartment in the city would be for children. I usually dodge the hints easily enough, but this time my voice catches when I say I haven't been really dating anyone.

"Rey?" Mom asks. "Is there someone?"

I don't know how to answer that question. "Well, sort of," I hedge. "It's complicated at the moment, though."

"What isn't?" Mom laughs. "I've been married to your father for over thirty years, and it's still complicated. Is it another police officer?" 

"It is."

"Well, you don't sound all that happy about it."

I sigh. "We fought yesterday and he....he just up and left."

Mom takes a minute to reply to that, and when she finally does, she says, "You know, sometimes your father and I worry about how we've raised you. The...impressions....we might have left upon you, without even meaning to, and I just worry that it's made things harder for you now that you're all grown."

"You're going to have to be a little less vague on that one, Mom," I tell her. "because I don't quite understand." 

And I mean it. My parents were the ideal parents. One a judge, one a doctor. They doted on me, their only child, and while there were certain expectations of etiquette and demeanor required of me, I never doubted their love. Or their respect, once I reached adulthood. 

"I'm afraid that we've raised you to be, well, _picky_ ," she says carefully. 

"Oh, Mom, please. Now you're just being dramatic." 

"We really did adore Eric," she forges on quickly. "but maybe your father and I didn't tell you enough that we didn't mind that he was, you know, _poor,_ " She whispers this last word as if it's not a word for polite company, and I lean my head against the doorway that I'm standing in.

"Mom, please."

"We're so very proud of what you do and that you do it not for very much money. It's so honorable, and we would extend the same perception to any police officer that you wanted to date."

I'm suddenly and fiercely grateful that I never told them about Hux, because I with a deep, regretful certainty that dating Hux wouldn't have required this conversation. They would have been overjoyed with Hux's background and career in law, especially my retired judge of a father, and we never would have had this talk about them not minding someone that I loved.

It's both exasperating and sweet, I suppose, that Mom feels these things must be said to me now. Exasperating because, generally, when someone goes out of their way to tell you they don't _mind something,_ it's an indicative that they actually do mind, at least on some level. 

And sweet because I can tell she mean well, in her own privileged sort-of way. "That's awfully thought of you to say," I say because I'm truly not sure how to respond. 

"I know," Mom says with benign obliviousness. And then she adds, "And we really, really want to have some grandchildren before we die!"

I manufacture an excuse to get off the phone very quickly after that, but her words find their mark. Not because her guilt finds any real home in me but because her words echo the fleeting, forbidden fantasies that have been chasing through my own mind.

Feeling my belly, swell with Flip's baby. Watching his big, strong handles cradle our child. Seeing him play on the floor and roughhouse and carry our child on his shoulders.

Fantasies that would most certainly rob him of his youth and the rest of his life. Fantasies, that I know that can never come true. 

Monday morning finds me at my desk two hours earlier than normal. Without Flip laid out behind me in a wall of warm male, I find it hard to sleep, and then I also find myself intensely irritated because I shouldn't miss him so damn much after such a short time. After repeatedly, telling myself nothing can ever come of our ill-advised liaison.

After doing my goddamn best to guard my heart. But I do miss him. I do. After tossing and turning and barely skimming under the surface of consciousness into bleak dreams, I finally gave up and decided to start the day.

So here I am, poring back over the license plate data from the last burglary. Last week, I had Flip run the plates through our system to see if anything came back flagged as linked to a criminal record, and we got a few hits back. All dead ends. 

Now I'm back to the beginning, narrowing the list down to the plates caught in the hour before the alarm was triggered and than seeing if I can find any patterns. 

It stands to reason that any burglar worth their salt would have done reconnaissance before---at least driven by once or twice---so I go back to the larger data pool to see if I can find any matches. Ah, the glory of detective work. Spreadsheet-driven analysis and data tabulation. No wonder there's so many TV shows about us. 

After getting a fresh mug of hot water for tea---tea that I get endless taunting for drinking in a station full of coffee addicts--I pull up emails from the different office managers listing the plates of employee cars so I can eliminate them from any potential patters I find. 

I highlight all of those and then cross-reference them with information from the burglary sites. I find something very interesting.

I roll out my shoulders and take a sip of tea as I consider the screen, and then I pull up our informational system and run a plate through. Since it's a cop system, it takes a long minute to load, and I click back to the spreadsheet while it searches, tapping my fingers against my lips. 

The same plate number pops up at four of the five burglaries within an hour of the alarms being triggered, And at scene number five? The car passed through the closest intersection at 7:48 that morning and didn't pass back through until 10:23 that night. Three minutes after the alarm had been triggered. _Drywall,_ I think. _The stupid fucking drywall._

I climb back tot he database to see the car is registered to a woman in her late forties named Debbie Pisani. I quickly scribble a quick note to Flip about where I'm going to grab the keys to a squad car, and head out the door, calling a patrol captain as I go.


	13. Chapter 13

FLIP ZIMMERMAN

I nearly jerk my dick raw that weekend, being away from Rey. Three weeks of her in my bed and I've turned into something insatiable and ravenous. I've always had a healthy appetite before, but now with Rey, my need to fuck her has exploded into a ceaseless, throbbing ache. 

An ache only she can ease me of, and she's not even here to do it. I could call her, I know I could.

I could show up at her doorstep right now, and she'd let me inside and we'd fuck until this God awful thing between us tucked it's ugly tail and hid. We could lose ourselves in our hurt in each other's bodies, and maybe things would go back to how they were before.

But I don't want that. I don't want things to be how they were. I want more, and I'm not going to cheat us out of something better simply because a day and a day without Rey is pure fucking agony. 

No. I love her. I need her forever. And I know I'm going to need every tool in the box to woo her away from these superstitions about age and occupation. This most important tool of all is: time. Time for both of us to just cool down. To miss each other. Time for the argument to recede enough that we can see all the upspoken fears underneath the hurtful words we both said to each other.

So I settled for my hand as my body demanded it's woman and I made future plans. Of what to say to her, what proofs to give, of when I'd concerned her points and when I'd kiss the arguments right off her prefect mouth.

We just have to get through work today, and then I'll take her home and tell her about my love for her over and over again until she realizes that love is strong enough to swallow up everything else. 

What is a job when I love her so much? Nothing at all. But she's not at her desk when I get there, even though I'm easily fifteen minutes early.

I set down the cup of tea and donut that I got for her---despite all the silk blouses and high school dressage trophies, Rey likes donuts just as much as any other cop, although she prefers gourmet honey-and-sea-salt type flavors to the glazed ones we usually have at the station and then read over the note she left for me by her desk.

Ran out to re-interview Gia Pisani. Be back by lunch. 

I'm reading it over a second and third time when she phone at her desk suddenly rings. I answer it, in case it's her.

"Zimmerman."

"Um, hi," comes a hesitant voice. "This is Shelley Harper, from the Colorado Springs Cancer Center Office? I'm calling for Detective Kenobi?"

"She's currently away from her desk at the moment," I say, glancing once again down at her note.

Conclusions are fitting together in my mind, and there's a sharp bite of worry in my chest. The itch to go and find her is difficult to think through. 

"I'm one of the officers assisting her on the case, though. I can take a message and make sure that she gets it when she returns if you'd like."

"Sure," Shelley says, sounding relived. "And actually you might be able to help me anyway. I had our office manager, Gia Pisani, send in an updated inventory of all the missing items, but I just realized we might have to contact some federal authority, and I thought maybe Detective Kenobi would know which one."

I'm standing and my body is already angled toward the cubicle opening. I'm that desperate to get to Rey right now. So I say hurriedly, "There's no need to report the televisions to anybody federal, ma'am. We'll handle it all here at the CSPD," and make to hang up. 

"Oh, I'm not talking about the televisions," she says, pleasantly surprised. "Did Gia not tell you? Our cobalt therapy machine has been damaged, and the cobalt inside was stolen."

"Cobalt?"

"Nuclear material? It's used for radiation therapy."

 _Cobalt._ It rings a bell from my army days, and my already tight hand practically cracks the phone received nearly in half. Cobalt. It's used for radiation....and _dirty bombs._

"And you didn't notice it was missing until now?"

She sounds defensive when she answers my question. "Look, we just refitted a new therapy room with a LINAC machine, so we haven't used the cobalt machine in over a month. It was scheduled to be removed next week. I went in there Friday to take a few measurements for the disposal company. That's when I noticed that it had been pried open."

_And Gia Pisani is the office manager. Rey is interviewing her right now. Things come together for me in a horrible rush._

"And I just wasn't sure if we needed to contact someone like the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or if you did that." she goes, oblivious to the fact that I'm splitting apart with panic on my end.

"Shelley, listen to me, I'm going to call you right back, but I have to go right now."

"Okay, but--"

"We didn't know about the nuclear material," I tell her, already reaching up to click on my radio. "And I have to tell a lot of people about it right now so no on else gets hurt."

"Oh," she says faintly, the gravity of it finally seeming to sink in. "Oh, of course. I should have thought to do---yes, but of course."

"Goodbye, ma'am." And then I'm hanging up the phone and calling for a captain on the radio. 

"Kenobi's got two uniforms with her," Captain Bridges tells me as I'm speeding south to the medical office nearly five minutes later. I'm not about to waste any time getting to Rey. "More are on the way now."

"And the NRC?"

"They're already been notified." A pause. I'm working up a sweat, occasionally wiping it off my brow as I continue to listen to the Chief. "And the KBI and the FBI."

"Is she with Pisani now?"

"They're in the staff breakroom at the back of the building. The uniforms are just outside the door in case things happen to go south really fast. Pisani doesn't know they're there. Everything's under control, Zimmerman. Relax, rookie, you're starting to scare me."

Funny how hard that is to believe that the woman I love is alone with a criminal who is apparently selling nuclear material on the black market. Relax? There's no relaxing where I am concerned.

Chief Bridges doesn't understand, well, maybe he does in a way---he has a wife of his own and would give his own life for her and I'm prepared to do the very same thing for the woman I love. I can't lose Rey. I won't lose her. I click off the radio and focus on driving, pushing the low-profile detective car to it's limits. 

It roars into the parking lot before any of the supervisors arrive, which is good. I don't need them forbidding me from going on because I'm going in no matter what happens.

I park and push my way into the building. There's an unfamiliar woman at the front desk who looks puzzled at my sudden appearance, so I assume that she doesn't know about the other cops in the building. 

"Where's your staff room?" I ask her through gritted teeth, trying to keep my voice low.

"Back by the lab," she says, still puzzled. "First door on the left. Hey, are you with that one lady--"

I don't stay long enough to chat. I move down the hallway as quickly as I can, pressing the hood of my holster down and forward in preparation for drawing my weapon. I pray I don't have to, because if I have to, it means Rey's in danger.....

I round the corner and see a door marked Employees Only. Taking a risk, I open it with wary, slow caution, making sure that I can slide into the restricted area without being seen or creating any noise. After I'm in, I close the door with a barely audibly _click_ and enter a fluorescent-lit hallway to see two patrol officers outside a windowed room. One of them put a finger to her lips, indicating I need to be silent, and I creep up to join them.

Through the window of the staff room. I see Rey sitting across a cheap table from Gia Pisani, two disposable cups of coffee between them.

Gia is agitated but trying so hard to hide it under a veneer of friendly confusion. Rey is unreadable---save for the occasional twitch of her lips as Gia talks. The Ice Queen's signature cool amusement. It really seems to piss Gia off. 

For a moment, I relax. It's just an interview in a forgettable bland staff room---a tense interview, maybe, but nothing more. No weapons, no open containers of nuclear waste, no anonymous mean here to protect their supply. Rey doesn't even know about the nuclear material yet, which means she won't question Pisani about it, which means the interview probably won't escalate to---

Gia stands abruptly, her chair knocking back behind her, her cheeks glowing as she says something rather heated to Rey. Rey merely crosses her arms and arched a perfect brow, as if to make the point that the young woman is embarrassing herself with this sudden outburst.

Like most cops, Rey has the gift of complete reticence---that is, refraining from reacting to another person until she's good and ready---and her lack of response only provokes Gia to say more.

Which was probably Rey's intention the entire time. Hardly any sound makes it through the window, and at this angle, it's hard to attempt any kind of interpretation to what Gia says, but Rey tilts her head and murmurs something in an unperturbed tone.

Gia blanches, and I know whatever Rey said hit home. Hard. _She's so fucking good at this._

Weird how I feel that thought in the pit of my stomach--not with lust but rather with fear. But because she's so good, she's more than good--she's sharply perceptive, intelligent beyond measure, fierce as hell, and that's not even taking into account all that sophistication and beauty. 

She's so far out of my league that we've never even played on the same field, and with a sudden, gripping sense of terror. I wonder if _that_ was what our fight was really all about that night.

If she's not truly worried about being my co-worker, my job, but if she's trying to let me down easy because I'm not good enough for her. And shit--she'd be right. I'm not. I have to glance down to take a breath--a big, deep one to try to stave off panic I've never know before, and right at that moment, something happens that blows even that panic right out of the water completely.

Gia shrieks something and, in a clumsy but quick movement, fumbles a gun from behind her back where it was tucked in her waistband.

She then aims it right at Rey. I'm moving in before I can even think, my gun out and my shoulder ramming the flimsy interior door open, and it's like all sound and feeling are gone, all extraneous sensation.

There's only the gun in my hand and the palpable presence of the woman that I love who's about to die before my very eyes. _She can't die. Oh God, she can't die._

Reality comes back in with a vicious, adrenaline-laced flood. The explosion of me through the door draws Gia's attention, and I hear myself yell for her to drop her weapon. I hear the two other cops behind me shouting for Gia to get on the ground. 

Rey says something in a low, soothing tone as she gets to her feet and gracefully gestures for everyone to lower their weapons, and for a moment I think Goa is going to do it.

I think she's going to drop her gun and give up this pointless resistance. But then the officer behind me speaks again, his voice jangling with sheer human panic, and it jars Gia free from any thoughts of surrender.

She swings the gun. She shoots.

"REY!"

And pain, big and stark, swallows me whole. And then total darkness. 


	14. Chapter 14

REY KENOBI

I've died. I've died and I've gone to hell. And I'm not even the one who was shot. A cup of coffee appears in my vision. Black, slightly oily, tiny bubbles rimming the edge of the liquid where it sloshed gently against the paper cup. I take it, although the idea of drinking or eating anything while my stomach is still twisted up into my throat is laughable.

I don't even bother to look over as Trapp settles next to me, his own cup of coffee in his hands. "How is he?" he asks.

"Stable, last I heard. The bullet caught an artery in his arm and he lost a lot of---" My voice catches, and I suck in a breath, forcing myself to face tonight's events with the usual blunt, cold honesty I face everything else with. "He lost a lot of blood." I manage after a moment. "They've closed the wound and did a transfusion, and he's recovering now. I should be able to see him soon."

Trapp reaches out, touches my hand with his rough, unmanicured fingers. I know he sees the dried blood still trapped along the lines of cuticles. "You saved his life, Rey," he says quietly. "He is alive because of you and your quick thinking. You have nothing to be ashamed of here, all right?"

"Maybe," I say, because at no point during those frantic bloody moments after the gun went off did I allow myself to hope. 

In fact, I have to disagree with Trapp. He got shot today because of me---because he couldn't let me go. Because....and I find myself trying not to cry in that moment....because he's an idiot and he loves me. 

At no point when I stanched his wound with my bare hands, the scene cruelly overlaid with my memories of trying to save Eric, did I let myself believe it could end any differently. Instead, I felt his hot, wet blood against my skin, sticky and slick all at once, and I thought _it's happening again. It's happening. All over again._

The uniforms cuffed Gia while she was frozen in horror at what she'd just done---we arrested her without any one of us firing a weapon or using any kind of force. 

Good police work any way you slice it, and the paramedics were a credit to the city. They arrived as fast as humanly possible and took charge of Flip's life with expert competence. Someone had to peel me away from Flip while they worked.

Another paramedic? Chief Bridges, maybe? But I was allowed to ride in the ambulance with him. Allowed to hold the hand on his good arm while I frantically searched for all the prayers from my Catholic upbringing. I could only remember fragments, and finally my thoughts disintegrated into vague, broken pleas as the ambulance raced to the hospital. 

God, please don't let him die. Please. Don't...let...him...die.

"There was nothing else you could have done, Rey," Trapp points out in the here and now. "The other officers told me what happened. You had the interview completely under control, and from what it sounds like, you might have been able to talk her down even without Zimmerman crashing in."

"But I should have searched her first," I murmur.

"You wouldn't have been able to--not without cause---and what you had on her going into the interview would have been pretty weak grounds for a body search from a court's perspective."

He's right, and what pains me even more is that I know he's right, and it's almost worse that way imaginable. It's almost worse to know I did everything right and still. _Still. He was shot._ I take a sip of the coffee. 

Not because I like it or because I need time to think, but just because it's something for me to do. Some new input that isn't self-recrimination and terror and misery. "He did exactly what Eric did," I say after a minute and mostly out of nowhere. 

"Yeah," Trapp sighs. "I know."

"Why do they do that?"

Trapp gives a dry laugh. "Who? You mean cops in general? Men? Or the men who are in love with you?" I don't want to answer that, and I can't anyway. "You can stop pretending, Rey. I know he's in love with you, Kenobi," Trapp adds gently. "All anyone has to do is look at him and know he's completely gone for you."

"He's young," I say, trying to sound dismissive. It only comes out as sad. "He doesn't know what he wants in his life."

"I have to disagree with you on that, Rey," Trapp says. "I think you're the one who doesn't know what she wants here."

"He did exactly what Eric did," I repeat softly, and he gives me a rueful look. 

"And is that so unforgiveable, Rey?"

I look down at my fingers, still stained with Flip's blood. "Yeah, it just might be." 

An hour later, with Trapp gone and Flip's family camped all around me, a nurse comes in to say that we can go in to see him, but we can't all go in at once. I'm desperate to get to him, desperate to trace his lips with my fingers and reassure myself that they're still warm. 

Anxious to see the rise and fall of his chest and know he's here. Still here. Still alive. But Flip's parents are here, and they have the right to go in first to see their son. 

I lace my fingers around the cup of coffee and give Flip's mother a look I hope she'll interpret s a signal that I won't protest her going in first....no matter how much that I want to see him for myself. 

She the walks up to me. "You're Rey Kenobi?" she asks. Her voice is fractured from crying, and tear tracks have dried in streaks along her cheeks. 

She's very pretty---brown-eyed just like he is and full-lipped like Flip too, short and stout but everything about her screams: warmth and love. 

"I am," I say quietly. "Please, you go in first. I can wait."

She gives me a watery smile. "Flip has told us a lot about you," she says, tucking her gray-salted lock of hair behind her hear. "That you two were dating, and he just couldn't wait--" Her chin trembles again. "He couldn't wait for us to meet."

Flip told his mother about me? Wanted us to meet? My heart flips overs at the discovery, at the proof that his declarations of love to me weren't just the lust-fueled blurting's that I'd suspected. That he only wanted more with me but was actively laying the foundation for more. 

Telling his parents. Wanting me to meet them. The same things my illict fantasies have been showing me for the last three weeks: a real life together. My flattered joy is tempered with something rather unpleasant. I look up at his mother and realize---it still can never happen for me and Flip. I realize that she's looking down at me and seeing....

Seeing what? A predator? A peer? Both options are depressing for me. 

"I'm not sure what you must think of me," I manage with a weak smile, and she shakes her head at me. 

She then reaches out and touches my shoulder. Not as a gesture of comfort but to draw my attention. I look at her hands, rough and calloused like Trapp's, and remember that she was a firefighter.

That her son's bravery and dedication to hard work comes directly from her. She's touching stiffened patches of garnet splattered all on the front of my blouse. 

There's dried blood all over me; I look like I've just emerged from some of abattoir massacre. "I think you're a hero my dear," she pronounces, her voice sincere and genuine. "You saved his life today. We owe you a great debt."

And then she and her husband followed the nurse into the ICU Unit. It's another hour before they leave, and finally I get to go in. 

Flip is still unconscious, his face pale and his huge frame dwarfed by the massive mechanical bed, and I cover my mouth with my hand so my unhappy gasp doesn't wake him. As if anything could wake him up after all that blood loss and morphine.

There's a chair pulled up beside his bed, but I completely ignore it, dropping my things on the floor and crawling right into bed with him, careful not to tug on any cords or tubes as I do. He's war, but not as warm as I'm used to, and I'm just as cold as I press my body along his and lay my head on his good shoulder.

"Flip," I mumble tearfully. "Why? Why are we even here?" Tears are leaking now---the fast, uncontrollable kind and the first I've cried since Gia fired that fun. "I love you," I finally admit a loud, hating myself that I never told him before now. "I love you, and it scares me to death. It scares me because you love me back and you love me back so much that you'd get yourself killed trying to protect me."

 _Just like Eric._ Beneath my cheek, I feel Flip's steady if shallow breathing. All around us, various machines and monitors beep and glow with reassuring consistency, as if to say _he's doing okay, he's doing okay._

But how can I ever be reassured of his safety ever again after this? After I've been spattered with coppery, vibrant blood as I begged and begged him to stay alive for me?

Maybe he didn't die today, but he came close enough to prove every single point that I've ever made about us. He is blessed enough to live and have his second chance, and surely he doesn't want to waste it all on a woman like me. Surely he deserves more tomcat years before he even has to think about settling down. And most importantly....he's just too young and he's too heroic.

I've loved those young heroes before. I know what happens to them. I know how it all ends. I cry for a long time into his big, muscled shoulder, leaving streaks of mascara on his hospital gown.

I slide my hand over his chest to feel the thump of his heart, and I listen to the machines, and I tell him again, "I love you. I love you. I love you." And before I leave the room, I kiss his stubbled jaw and say, "And I'm so fucking sorry for what I have to do next."


	15. Chapter 15

FLIP ZIMMERMAN

I'm too dizzy to open my eyes. Sounds bleed through the haze of strange dreams---sounds that I don't recognize--and I can't open my eyes to see what they are because the world around me is spinning, spinning, spinning completely out of control. I smell something familiar. 

A delicate, French perfume, and the smell of conjures a face in my mind. _Rey._

But before I can even manage to speak her name, heavy, drugged unconsciousness pulls at me, the sounds receding as I disappear back into the spinning darkness once more. When I wake up again, the dizziness isn't so bad, but Rey's scent has disappeared into a miasma of cleaning chemicals and fast food. I manage to pry my open my bleary eyes to find both of my parents sitting next to me, McDonald's cups in their hands, talking in love tones about replacing the fence in their backyard.

"M-Mom?" I rasp.

"Oh!" she says, setting her cup down and rushing to lean over me. "Oh, Phillip, sweetheart, you're awake!"

She sounds so happy and sad all at once, and even in my groggy state of mine, I can see the drawn lines around her mouth and eyes, the ashen cast to her face. Whatever I've been through, she's suffered more in watching me go through it.

My dad quickly joins her on the other side of the bed, taking my hand. I'm so glad to see them, although the reasons why are hazy.....

"W-Where's Rey?" I whisper. "She was here, I know she was....."

Mom and Dad exchange a look over me. Mom's look distinctly says, _you see, I told you so._ I see my Dad nodding in agreement to this, nothing ever gets past _my_ Mom. I know this from past experiences. 

"She's been here constantly," Mom says as she looks back at me. "We sent her home today to get a change of clothes and a nap. She hasn't been taking care of herself since you came in. She looked like a complete wreck."

I close my eyes, pained that Rey has been suffering but hopeful too---hopefully that if she's been here and had to be forced to leave that it means something for us. Something for our future together. 

"How long?" I ask. My voice is still dry and raspy. "How long have I been here?"

"Three days." Dad says. "The first day was probably the hardest---" His voice cracks, and he clears this throat in a manly sort of way. "You got moved down from the ICU yesterday. They say that you're in good shape---no sign of infection so far. They'll be in to assess potential nerve damage later."

Infection. Damage. The haze clears a bit around what I'm feeling in my body---like my right arm is on fire---and _why_ I'm feeling it. Gia's face. florid and angry, her hand shaking around the gun so hard that she could barely keep it still.

Rey, slender and cool, eyebrowed arched as she stared down the barrel without so much as flinching. The barb of real, primal terror that lodged in my heart when I realized Rey was about to die. I've never felt fear like that before. Not even when I was serving over in Afghanistan. 

Funnily enough, I was also never actually wounded in Afghanistan either. It was here, on these mean suburban streets, by a Vassar grad-student with a flair for supplying terrorists with rare metals. 

Who would've guessed? With my parents' help, I sit up and manage to chew some ice chips, and then I fall straight back to sleep, the seductive pull of the pain medicine too strong for me to resist. I don't dream much, but what I do dream of is strange and warped and distressing to me.

And it's always, always about Rey. _My_ Rey. 

When I wake up again, it's dark outside the window and the nearby highway is mostly drained of traffic. The lights in the room are dimmed, and a television is playing a re-run of a sitcom show I normally hate. 

But I'm just too tired and out of it to bother trying to find a way to change the channel. Most importantly, there's someone in bed with me. Someone warm and sweet-smelling. My arm wraps around her instinctively, pressing her tight against me as my heart squeezes in a familiar, achy sort of way.

The monitor next to me reflects that, and Rey shoots upright in alarm. "Flip," she says urgently, searching my face. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," I murmur. "Just awake. Just holding you."

The panic recedes from her facial expression slowly. "Does your arm hurt? Do you need me to get the nurse?"

"Rey," I say, reaching for her again. "I only need you. Stay." 

With a huff of disbelief, she nestles back into me, and I savor the feeling of her being so close to me. My body gives a faint pulse of aroused response---muffled by the pain meds---and I ignore it for now, simply enjoying the close contact.

Enjoying the weight of her against me and the spill of her hair, messy and tousled as it hardly ever is, cascading over my shoulder. She's in something surprisingly casual too--jeans torn at the knees and cuffed at her ankles---an an old army shirt that I left at her house once. For some reason, seeing her in my shirt makes me want to cry. 

I fight off the urge by burying my face in her hair and breathing her in. She's here. She's safe. I had kept her safe. 

A few more days pass like this. Trapp comes by and tells me I'm on medical leave until I'm cleared by the doctor to come back to light duty. Rey comes in at night, after my parents leave and always wearing my shirts, and snuggles in the bed with me, much to the nurses' amusement.

She doesn't say very much, which begins to worry me, and every time I bring up the case or my injury, she shuts down completely on me. I'm not sure what to do about it. I want her to know how happy that I am to know that she's safe. How few fucks I give about getting shot when it means that she's here with me now, unharmed and whole. Even if I had lingering impairment in my arm that means I can't wear the badge anymore....

Worth it. I'd do it all over again and again in a heartbeat if it mean Rey left that staff room alive and well. 

But the more that I try to tell her that, the more closed off she gets. I'm desperate to get out of this hospital bed and into a real bed with her so we can extinguish all this pent-up frustration and fear in a frenzy of touch and sweat. 

If I could just get her underneath me....and feel her, touch her, show her just how much her being alive really means to me.

She's in bed with me now. The lights are dimmed and the nurse just checked on me, giving me the conspiratorial wink when she shut the door, and I know that we have a least an hour or more before she returns to check on me again. 

Without even giving myself time to doubt the stupidity or wisdom of this, I tuck Rey close to my side and roll us so that she's underneath me and I'm covering my body with hers. 

I have to grit my teeth a bit as I settle my weight on my injured arm along with my good one, but the stitches hold the Demerol blunts the worse of the bite. "Flip!" Rey says breathlessly, blinking over at the door and then up to my injured arm. "You'll hurt yourself! You'll---"

I cut her off with a fierce, hard kiss--the first real one that I've been able to give her since the shooting. I silently thank God that I've been able to walk around the past two days and shower and brush my teeth and all that, because I don't have to hold back.

I lick at her lips until she parts them for me, and then I lick inside her mouth, tasting her and teasing her until her wary body begins to melt underneath mine.

Until she's moaning and her hands wander to the back of my hospital gown to clutch at my ass. I've forgotten how much I craved the feel of her hands on me, my body, my entire existence. 

"The only way that I'll hurt," I breathe against her lips. "is if you don't let me taste you right now." 

"Taste me? But---"

It's too late to turn back now. I'm already working my way down her body, careful of my IV and monitors wires, and rucking up her borrowed T-shirt to kiss around her navel as I unbutton her jeans. 

"Phillip Zimmerman, you can't," she says, "you can't, but oh God, you are, _you are..._."

I yank the jeans down past her cunt, ignoring the sharp pain in my arm as I shove the denim to her knees and expose her silk-clad mound to my stare. The silk goes down to her knees too, and then I push her legs up to her chest so that she's available to my mouth.

I lick her slit, and the sweet, earthly flavor explodes on my tongue. She cries out at the same time my heart monitor pings it's alarm. "Shh," I pant, "or the nurse might come in and then we'll really be in for it."

She presses the back of her hand to her mouth and turns her head to the side, as if that's going to make my onslaught any easier for her to bear. I highly doubt that, since it's been nearly a week since I've eaten her pussy and I'm hungry as hell. It's hard work to service her properly, with her legs bound together by her jeans and her knees shoved up to her chest, and with my body hanging off the bottom of the bed and my ass hanging out of my gown.

But I don't care--it's like heaven for me. Burying my face, getting my lips and chin wet, seeking out her swollen little clit with my tongue and stroking it. Lapping at her entrance like it's the only real medicine that I need.

I have to force myself to breathe, to be calm, because I know there's only so much I can push that heart monitor before the nurse feels compelled to check in on me, no matter how much she wants to be my wing-woman. But it's nearly impossible to slow it down.

I can't keep my heart from pounding in anticipation. Can't keep the blood from going right to the throbbing weight between my legs. 

Although judging from the way my balls have drawn up tight to my body, I'm guessing that I won't be making the heart monitor go off for very long. After so many days without her, her taste alone is enough to nearly send me over the edge.

********

And then she cums against my tongue with a muffled cry, her sweet little well contracting in rhythmic flutters, her hand reaching around and twisting in my hair to keep my mouth right where she needs it to be. I can't last much longer. 

With a quick move that has my arm screaming out in agony, I'm back on the bed and rolling her to her side as I climb behind her. I manage to plunge in right at the end of her orgasm, and I have to clap my hand over her mouth as she starts cumming all over again at the fresh invasion of my cock.

It only takes three thrusts and the feeling of her moaning against my palm before I'm there, emptying everything I have inside her, pumping her full of a week's worth of need, and all to the beep consternation of the heart monitor behind her. It's insistent tones underscore my final thrusts as I give Rey every last drop of what I have, and then it finally begins to settle down as I slide out of her and pull her snug against me.

We're both wet and messy and her pants are still around her legs, but I don't want to move. I just want to hold her tight and relish in the sensation of having her here, close and safe. My woman.

 _Mine._ _All mine._ Rey then wriggles herself free from my grasp, not saying anything as she reaches for a tissues to clean up. Not meeting my eyes as she quickly pulls up her panties and then her jeans. 

A slow curl of unease blooms in my chest. "Rey? Baby? Is something the matter?"

She doesn't answer at first, still buttoning herself and smoothing back her hair, until finally and with a long swallow, she meets my stare. Oh God. 

I don't know what's happening or why I don't know what she's about to say---but I'm certain that she's about to leave me for good. There's something about the hollow pain in her gaze and the unhappiness around the lines of her plush mouth....something about her posture that looks defensive and determined all at once.

"Rey," I say again, sitting up. The heart monitor, which was calming down, starts beeping faster again. "Don't do this. _Please_ , I'm begging you, don't do this to me....to _us._ "

She takes a deep breath, like she's steeling herself. "Flip."

"No." The beeping makes it extremely hard for me to think, but the more frantic I feel, the faster it gets. "No, Rey. I don't know what it is you're thinking, but no."

"I had held off on doing this for as long as I could," she whispers. "I thought I'd wait until you woke up....and then I thought I'd wait until you were discharged, but I was just fooling myself because I don't want to leave...."

"Then why even do it at all?" I demand. "Why put is through this when you know that I love you?"

She lifts her eyes to the ceiling, ignoring my pleas. "I thought you were going to die. I felt your blood on my hands, and there was so much of it, and I thought how can anyone lose this much blood and still--" She pauses, steadies her shaky voice. "I cannot go through that again. I used to think I couldn't go through it for anyone after Eric, but it's _you_...I can't go through it with _you,_ either. I love you too damn much." 

I'm off the bed in an instant, but my IV monitor wires mean that I can't get close to her. I want to rip them all off and go and gather her into my arms. 

Crush her against my chest and kiss her hair until she stops this madness. "Rey, if you love me," I try to reason with her, "then trust that everything will work out. _Please_."

I reach out my hand, knowing that I must look ridiculous in my bare feet and my hospital gown, but I don't even care. I just want her to come closer. I just want her to stay with me. 

"No," she says, and her chin is trembling now. She still won't look at me. "I wish that were true. I really do, but loving each other doesn't erase who we are. You'll always be in danger---"

"Then I'll stop." I interrupt her. "I'll quit. If quitting is what it takes, I'd do it in a heartbeat for you for the sake of never having to lose you!"

"No!" she cries. "That's not what I want at all! I don't want you to change who you are or what you love to do, Flip!"

"It's just a job, Rey. I can find another one if I need to."

"Can you?" she whispers. "Can you honestly tell me right here and now that you don't miss the action from when you were deployed? Can you really tell me that you won't be bored doing something else, something safe?"

I open my mouth to argue. I close it again. I can't lie to her. Not when I know deep down that she's right about all of this. 

"And you're a hero, Flip," she adds, blinking fast at the ceiling. "You're a good cop. We need more of those in this world. _I_ need more of those, because I'm not planning on giving up this job either, and I want cops like you by my side. I just can't _love_ them."

"It's already too late for that, Rey," I say roughly. "You already do. You love me and I don't care what you say, or try to do to make me think otherwise, you love me and you want to be with me and there's nothing wrong with that!" 

She finally meets my eyes, and what I see there shreds me to pieces. Those aren't the eyes of someone about to fall on a sword---they are the eyes of someone who's already fallen. 

"I love you enough to know that I'll ruin your life," she says in a broken voice. "We work together, Flip. We can't---our job performance could be effected if we continue this and besides, you might not think about that stuff now but what about in twenty years? Your reckless, and do stupid things like you did---"

I'm actually hurt by that statement and I stand there gaping at her, utterly flabbergasted that she would have the nerve to say any of this to me. "Would you have rather I let you get shot?"

"No, I'm just saying that---"

"Because that's what it sounds like to me, Rey."

"Listen to me!" she cries. "What happens when you've felt forced into deciding on whether or not to have children because it's not going to be possible with the kind of lifestyles that we have! Our work will become our lives! You deserve to spend your years free of all that. Free of responsibility until you choose it."

"Well, I'm choosing it now," I rumble, trying to pull closer and feeling the IV in my hand protest. "Why is that so hard for you to believe? I don't want to spend those years being "free" as you call it. I don't want to spend any years without you at all." 

"It's only been three weeks," she says. "It all feels real to you now, but it's not, Flip. It can't be."

"It _is_ real. I love you, Rey. I think I've loved you from the second I first saw you that night and---I _want_ this life and I _want_ it with _you!_ "

Goddammit, it is. It is real, Rey---can't you see that? Can't you feel it? How can she say that after everything we've been through? Done? It feels like a stab to my gut, her words.

"I'm so sorry that I couldn't let you go sooner," she whispers. "It was so selfish of me to wait, to want to be with you one last time..." She takes a step back, and I know that if she walks out that door, I'll lose her forever. It really will be the end. I make to yank off the monitor wires, and her eyes flare up in panic. "Stop it, Flip," she pleads, and I don't care.

I'm not letting her leave. I'm not letting her finish us when I know that she loves me, when I love her, when she's mine. I tear them off my chest, not even feeling the sting, and then I start on my IV, trying to peel back the clear bandage they put on top.

" _Stop it_ ," she says more desperately now, and then, "I didn't want to say the real reason that I need to leave."

These last words come out in a rush. "And what's that?" I say, looking up at her with a scowl on my face.

She bites her lip, blinks twice, and then says, "You're not enough for me, Flip."

It takes a minute for her words to truly register, for their meaning to unfold in my mind. And then they do, I freeze. "Excuse me, I'm sorry??"

"I meant what I said about everything else," she explains, "but the real reason we can't be together is that we just don't fit. I'm sorry. I don't make the rules about these things, but there it is. You're too young, too coarse and too reckless."

Her words hurt worse than that fucking bullet ever did, digging into the same fear that plagued me watching her question Gia through the window. She's too good for me. 

"Reckless?" I echo. "I thought you just said that I was a hero."

"It's a kind word for a stupid waste," she snaps. "If you're so careless with your own life, how the hell can I trust you with my heart?" Behind me, the heart monitor is making all the noises I can't seem to. "I could never spend the rest of my life with you," she says coolly. "And now that you're awake and well, I can finally tell you."

"Rey....baby.... _please.._..whatever it is that's bothering you.....whatever is making you feel this way, it doesn't have to be. We can be together, we'll figure it out." 

She takes in a sharp breath at the endearment, and I'm not sure what I see on her face. Confusion? Cruelty? Regret? Pain? But it disappears in an instant, leaving only the familiar face of the Ice Queen behind in it's place. 

"Goodbye, Flip," she says and starts for the door. "I'm looking forward to your return to duty." 

I don't rip out the IV after all. I just stand there and watch her leave. I watch her leave in my shirt with her hair still tangled from our impromptu fuck. I watch her leave, and I can still taste her on my lips. And for the first time since I was shot, I feel like I just might kill over and die. 

If anything, I'd welcome death. My heart shatters like fragile glass falling onto the concrete floor beneath me. She's gone. She's _really_ gone and there's nothing that I can say or do about it. Too bad they don't tell you about heartbreaks in criminal justice 101 and it's a damn shame they don't---because this fucking hurts worse than receiving any bullet. 


	16. Chapter 16

REY KENOBI

I have a meeting with the FBI, and it takes over nine-hours. Nine hours to detail all the evidence against Pisani, sift through her statement, and apply it to what we know. She used her mother's car as a way to deflect visibility, and she robbed all those other doctor's officers as a way to keep suspicion on the stolen televisions and not on the decommissioned medical equipment in her own place of work. 

The FBI is tracking down a boyfriend they think helped her with all of the physical aspects of the burglary, and they're also attempting to track down the cobalt itself. 

Why a Vassar grad became a criminal is still a question the FBI will have to answer, although I think I saw a hint of the reason in Pisan's statement. _I couldn't find a job after graduation, not a single one. And then I finally found this office job, and it barely paid any of my bills, and it was so boring that I wanted to die....._

Very smart and very bored. Add in some money problems and a healthy dose of anger, and that's really all it takes. 

By the time the meeting is over, I feel ready for an entire bottle of wine. Maybe even two. It's the first time since I transferred into investigations in the weeks after Eric's death that I've missed being a patrol officer. Missed being spared the interminable meetings, missed the clean-burning energy of working hard and then burning off steam at a bar or in someone's bed after. 

Of course, right now there's only one bed that I want to be in, and I made damn sure I'd never be invited back. _It was for his own good_ , I tell myself for the millionth time since I broke Flip's heart a week ago.

He wasn't listening to reason, he wasn't letting me do this _for him_ , so I had to make him let me go instead. I had to find the things I knew would make him flinch and make him doubt.

I had to hurt him so he's accept the fact that we had to end. One day, he'll thank me for this. One day he'll realize that I was the one mature and sacrificing enough to protect his chance at having a full and happy life. 

That it killed me in the process is inconsequential. What's important is that he has his future back, full of all the opportunities and new women he deserves. Full of time for him to meet his real soulmate and do things at the pace they're supposed to be done. 

What's even more important is that I won't have to wait up at night for him anymore. I won't ever have to watch someone hand a folded flag to his mother.

I won't have to to miss him so much that it feels like the muscles of my heart are tearing themselves apart. Except, that's exactly how I feel right now. And when the FBI finally has everything they need from me to formally assume responsibility for the case, I go home so that my heart can tear itself wide open in peace. I curl up in of of Flip's shirts, smelling the achingly familiar scent of tea tree oil and leather. 

_It was for his own good._ But I think I may have shattered any hope of _good_ being a part of my own life now, and even though it was worth it, I still have to mourn the cost.

I gave him his future....and now mine is empty without him. 

Chief Bridges calls me a few days later to tell me that both Flip and I will receive commendations from the our top commander at a special ceremony next week. He also tells me that since the case is no longer ours, Flip will return to Trapp's squad whenever he gets off medical leave.

I should be extremely happy about this---I know that I should---but I hang up the phone and stare at my suddenly-too-big desk and feel like I've been hit square in the chest.

He'll probably be relived that we'll be back to never seeing each other at work, but I'm not. I can't be. I've only just realized it, but I was counting on having at least _this_ with him. At least the perfunctory _hellos_ and _goodbyes_ and accidental brushes of elbows and feet as jostled for space at the same desk. 

It's so selfish to want it. I broke a good man's heart, and I don't get to have him close to my anymore. The sooner he moves on, the better it is for him, but I can't stop the ache of grief that comes with it all. 

The gnaw of bitter loss, I just want him near me, even if I can't have him, even if it's better for him to meet other women and go life his life....

The very idea of not seeing those flashing warm eyes and that stern mouth, of not hearing that deep, rough voice...Ah, fuck, it hurts like hell. It hurts so much I don't know how I'll possibly survive it. But survive it I must, and survive I do for the next week. I bury my pain work, coming in early and staying up late in an attempt to exhaust my body and mind.

In an attempt to keep the sadness within me at bay and make myself too tired to miss Flip at night. It doesn't work on either count, so I only succeed in making myself tired _and_ miserable, which I feel like I deserve. I resist the urge to call the hospital.

I resist the urge to visit him, even after I hear that he's finally been released from the hospital. I resist the urge to throw myself at his feet and beg, beg, beg for his forgiveness. 

_It's for his own good._ It's so unfair that I have to be the strong one right now---the wise one---when all I want to do is curl up in his lap and have him play with my hair. When all I want to do is marry him and lots of brown-eyed babies and spend the rest of our lives making each other breakfast and sharing the job we both love. Because, yes, I see that now.

I thought I hated that he was a cop as well. I thought I could never live with it, but now that we're apart...I miss it like hell. 

I miss having someone to talk over a case with, someone who understands the uniquely exhausting and exhilarating parts of the job. I miss having someone to share it all with. All this tired unhappiness makes me jittery and anxious on the evening of the commendation ceremony. I pull on my dress uniform and pin on my brass with trembling fingers, and I don't even bother to apply lipstick because I know I'll make a mess of it.

And all because the man I love and had to push away will be there too. _Get it together, Rey._

But I can't. My stomach is hollowed out and my pulse is pounding when I get to the central station and walk inside. It's like every beat of my heart is saying. _Flip. Flip. Flip. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Flip._

I absolutely detest these ceremonies anyway. They're anemic and bureaucratic and pointless. I already have several commendations on my wall. I've already gone to this same small reception room six times in my career and shaken the chief's hand and received a signed piece of paper I'll never look at again.

And now I'll have to go and do all for the case that both brought me to Flip and also nearly got him killed? 

It's very tempting to take this heavy dress hat off and go back to my car. Tempting just to walk away from it all--the ceremony and the memories and the inevitable agony I'll feel when I finally lay eyes on the man that I love.

The man I hurt....basically stabbed in the heart repeatedly. But it's not in my nature to shirk my duties, even if I think the duty pointless, so I keep the hat on and enter the reception hall, not surprised to see that it's only half-full, and that half is all Flip's family.

His mom looks over her shoulder at me as I walk in, and a flush rises to my cheeks, wondering she she hates me now that I've hurt Flip...her baby. Wondering if she now sees me as the predator I initially feared she would. Her face opens in a wide smile, and she gives me a small wave, her husband going the same thing, and I manage a nod back as my heart squeezes. Even still, I want his family to like me. How foolish is that? There is, of course, nobody here for me. It's too much trivial to ask my parents to come over from France, and I don't have anyone else.

No siblings. No close friends. A bolt of loneliness hits me so hard that I can barely keep my back straight....and that's before I see him standing in front of me.

Because when I see him, I think I might drop to my knees right then and there. He's shaved for the ceremony, exposing fully that bladed jaw and that solemn, sensual mouth, but his hair is longer than he normally keeps it, dark and just a little messy, practically begging for my fingers to sift through it.

The long-sleeved dress shirt stretches across his broad shoulders, testing the seams, and then fitted fabric hugs the lean lines of his torso and waist. The tailored pants fit him almost indecently well, showing off his narrow hips and long, powerful thighs, and even with his wound arm up in a sling, he's still all potent, dominant male. 

And when his fierce chocolate-brown eyes lock on me, I know whom he wants to dominate. My body answers immediately, obedient to his silent command, and my nipples harden against the silk of my bra. 

I just hope the thick fabric of the uniform is enough to conceal my response, but I know that there's no hope for the blush on my cheekbones or the dilation of my pupils.

He owns even the automatic responses of my body. He owns everything. So much so that even in front of this small crowd, I want to drag him off by his uniform tie and mount him in the first empty room that we can possibly find.

No, Rey. For his own good, remember? And anyway, his desire is fueled by his palpable anger with me. I can practically feel it radiating off him, seething, lustful hurt, and God help me, it makes me want him even more than ever before. I want all of that possessive, revengeful man over me and underneath me. Claiming me.

Destroying all of my fears that he'll one day want someone else, obliterating my fear for his safety with the primal, urgent proof of his life. 

I want to surrender the responsibility of doing the right thing. I want him to be the one to make all the hard choices now, and I want him to choose me. I want to tell him that I love him and that I'm so sorry for hurting him the way I did that night. 

It hurts to tear my eyes from his, but I manage, approaching my chair and sitting without acknowledging him, which he scowls at. He also takes a seat, his long legs making it so that our thighs brush briefly as he sits, and I can feel the shudder run through him as we touch. See his entire body quiver in ferocious restraint as the chief begins talking to the crowd of people. 

Minute by minute, my resolve lessens and my famous ice thaws. I can smell the masculine scent of clean leather and tea tree oil. I can see his clenched thigh next to my own and those huge hands of his white-knuckled where they rest in his lap.

I'm weak, I'm so weak, because I want to beg his forgiveness and beg him to make me atone with my body, but I can't.

 _I just can't._ _Dammit, Rey, you can't._

".....and that's why we're so proud to present Officer Phillip Zimmerman and Detective Rey Kenobi with these commendations. Let's give them a round of applause, shall we?"

We both stand up, and then there's handshakes and pictures with the chief formally presenting us our commendation, and then finally, thankfully, it's over. I bolt out if the reception room as fast I can because I don't trust myself around Flip a moment longer.

If I so much as look at him, speak to him, I'm going to crumble. I'm going to beg him to _make_ me crumble, and if I'm going to survive losing him, I have to hold on to my pride somehow...or what's left of it, that is. 

So I leave while he's talking to his family and take a shortcut through the employee-only hallway back to the parking lot, breathing out a sigh of relief when the door closes behind me.

This is the hallway where most of the civilian employees and administrative personnel work, and since it's evening, they've all left and I'm alone. I need to get home. I need to get home where I'm safe from my own weaknesses, where I can burn off this need for Flip Zimmerman with a long run and a good toy and not by finding him and fucking myself on his angry erection until we're both too exhausted too move. 

A door creaks behind me; I stop dead in my tracks and slowly turn around.

********

Flip is framed in the doorway like a wrathful god, striding toward me with a look on his face that would signal to any other woman to take immediate cover. It only makes me ready for him, so ready that I ache.

I'd do anything right now to ease that ache, any undignified thing, oh God oh God--

"We're going to talk now," Flip says, reaching me and yanking me into him with his good arm. Every curve of mine presses me against his hard body, and the unmistakable proof of him wanting to "talk" digs into my lower belly. "We're going to talk until I fucking understand why you said the things you said to me that night." 

I close my eyes in regret, in uncertainty. If I tell him I hated the things I said, that they were all lies I chose for the plain fact that I _needed_ to hurt him, then everything else will tumble out after it.

How much I love him, how much I want him and want him to be mine. And if he ever knew that? If he knew he had permission to claim me forever?

Then all of this would have been for nothing, and I wouldn't have saved him or myself from all the pain waiting for in the future. It's remembering the awaiting pain---inevitable, unavoidable---that gives me strength. I open my eyes and gaze up at his face. 

"I said them to you because I had to, because you wouldn't have listened to reason," I say, which is not a lie. 

Flip's eyes narrow. "You only said them to hurt me. Every day since, I'd thought you'd call to explain more, to tell me that you were lying the whole time, that you never meant any of it, that maybe in some small way, you loved me back. To tell me I wasn't just...."

"Just what?" I whisper. 

He exhales forcefully. "Just a young, dumb fuck. Just a good boy for you to ride until you got bored of me."

I want to close my eyes again. I hate myself for giving him this doubt, this open, bleeding wound, but what else could I have done to make him believe me? His face changes when I don't deny it right away, his defensive expression pulling into a dark scowl. 

"Well, if that's all you want from me," he says roughly. "I can certainly give it to you. You want me to fuck you like I did that first night, hmm? Bend you over the table what take whatever I want? Or what about the night I found out you were with Hux? What about the night I tore open your pretty silk blouse and tied you up with it so I could fuck your virgin ass?"

Despite all of my regret and torment, his words stir up my already primed body, and I can't help the little moan that escapes from my lips. 

His eyes flare, and suddenly I'm spun around, my hands pinned to the wall and my ass yanked back to his lap. "I knew it," he breathes heavily in my ear as his hand works at the belt to my dress pants. "Knew you wanted me." 

I recognize distantly that I need to stop this, that I need to tell my decision still stands no matter what he says, but dammit, I don't _want_ my decision to stand. And how can I deny my neglected body what it's been keening for since I left him in that hospital room? Instead, I grind back against his cock and whimper the moment his hand slides into my panties, his middle finger finding my clit with unerring accuracy and rubbing me so perfectly that I feel the climax already pulling tight in my belly. 

"Yeah," he grunts behind me, rocking his clothed erection against me as his fingers me with that blunt male negative prerogative that gets me so hot. "That's it! Remind me how wet and tight that pussy gets just for me. Remind me how hard I make it cum!"

I've been too long denied, too desperate, and his words eradicate any barrier between me and what he demands of my body. In a sharp, vicious instant, I cum so hard that my knees buckle and it's hand on my cunt keeping me standing upright.

"Need you fuck you, Rey," he mumbles into my hair. "Need it like I need to breathe."

"Yes," I breathe, still riding it out on his hand. "Yes, please, yes."

He then pulls his hand free, and then I hear the unmistakable noise of him sucking his finger clean. It's so carnal and raw that I think I might just pass out from craving alone, from needing that massive cock of his inside me, stroking inside me---and then he uses his damp fingers to gently brush my hair away from my neck so he can kiss the super sensitive skin there.

The combination of dirty and tender that undoes me, every single time. I can feel him reaching for his belt, unfastening it one-handed and then tugging at the zipper. 

I arch my back, thinking I'll yank my pants down around my hips so I'll be ready whenever he was---but then, he stops. Hand on his zipper, his lips against my nape, he goes completely still. 

"I can't," he says after a moment of silence. "And I won't. I care too much about you to bullshit you and now I think I see...."

He's there behind me, fully erect and unzipped, and I'm wet from the frantic, heated orgasm he just gave me in the hallway of a police station.....and it's not going to happen. He's not going to fuck me. 

There's not going to be some kind of electric connection that just magically fixes everything between us. No frenzy of sweat and need that absolves us of past sins and leaves us both clean and ready for a new future on the other side.

I'm frozen in place, my hands still spread against the wall like I'm being frisked, and I don't know what to say or what to do. I don't know what he needs or what I need. I don't know how to make this okay between us, how to get back to where we were before I defaced it with my own fears.

Oh God. I just want things to go back to the way they were before? What does that even mean? 

His hands fists at my shirt near my shoulder, keeping me close to him. "I want to, Rey," he murmurs against my neck. " _Fuck,_ I want to so badly. And I thought that maybe....maybe if this was the only way you'd take me, then I'd give it to you, because that's how much I want you in my arms. But I've realize that---"

He then takes a determined breath, his chest swelling up against my back. I just want to cry right there and there but I refrain from doing so until I hear what he's got to say.

"But I can't do that to us, and I won't cheapen what I feel for you."

God, how is he so good? So good even now, after I've hurt him? After I've shut him out? Maybe I've been wrong about which one of us is the mature one, the wise one. Maybe I should have trusted Flip's faith in us from the very beginning....

He lets me go with a finality that makes me wince, zipping up and buckling his belt all before I can even manage to run to face him. Fix this! my heart demands, but I just don't know how to. I don't even know if I can. And it doesn't even matter because Flip is right in front of me, but he may as well already be out the door. His chocolate gaze is filled with pained resignation. 

"It was never something tawdry or transactional on my end," he says quietly. "In fact, I always believed you were the best thing to have ever happened to me."

A chocked noise echoes in the hallway, and I only realize it came from me when I feel a hot tear trace down my cheek to my jaw. 

"And now I know," he continues, just as quietly. "that you never believed the reverse. You didn't love me as much as I loved you."

"Flip," I say, more tears coming down now. "Stop. Please, that's not---"

"No, it's okay," he says, running his hand over his face. "It's okay. I can't make you love me like I love you, and you know what? I don't want to make you. I just thought that I could prove to you that you were mine. I thought I could possess you with my body, and that alone would be enough---but I don't want to possess you if you don't want to be possessed, you know? It's only worth calling you mine if you say it right back to me. And i know what happened with Eric was fucked up, I know me getting shot was terrifying, but there's got to be a time when you choose to move forward, no matter how scary that might be."

He leans forward and kisses my forehead, and my mind---normally the sharp, focused tool I prize---fails me. I'm searching through his word for an answer, searching through my own thoughts, and it's so hard because I'm crying and I can't see, and all I can do is slump back against the wall and try to breathe.

Try to live. Because what is he really asking me here? For the truth and an apology, almost certainly, but I think he's asking me for more.

I think he's asking me to take a risk, to relinquish my control....to be vulnerable. To thaw myself out. Ever since Eric died, I've been doing everything I can to keep myself as frozen as possible.

Deep down, I never really minded being called Officer Ice Queen. I was a little proud of it, in fact, because it mean I did what I needed to, which was to focus on my job and nothing else. It meant I succeeded in keeping myself safe and my heart protected.

It meant that I was strong. But now? Is this the kind of strong that I want to be? The kind of strong that goes and hurts other people "for their own good"?

The kind of strong that would rather push someone away than do the hard work of loving through fear? God, no. Maybe I needed these last several years of control. Maybe being an island has served me in the past, but not anymore. Not anymore because I have Flip and I have the knowledge I've had all along but somehow couldn't believe until now; surviving isn't living. 

And I've realized that I'd rather be vulnerable with Flip than strong without him around. My breath catches, my heart pounding with his epiphany and my fingers already fixing to grab him back to me, to pull him close and tell him everything.

To tell him that I love him and I want to move forward with him, even though, yes, I'm scared. But when I wipe my tears from my eyes, I see something awful. I see that I'm alone. Flip is gone.


	17. Chapter 17

FLIP ZIMMERMAN

My instincts have never failed me before. Not in a war zone, not on the beat. Not even when I took a bullet in a medical building staff room, because taking that bullet meant that Rey was safe. Which means I'd do it a thousand times over again if I had to, even knowing how the shooting unraveled into pain and heartbreak. 

I'd still choose it because keeping her safe is the priority. No, my instincts have never failed me before. Except for right now.

I walk out to my car with fast, jerky strides, desperate to avoid anyone lingering after the ceremony for the usual flow of evening-shift cops dropping off in-custodies or hopping into the report room to catch up on some paperwork. I smell like Rey and my uniform is rumpled, and I can't decide if I need to cry or smash something with my fists. So yeah, avoidance seems like the right kind of strategy. 

And as I go, I question myself over and over again. How could I have been so wrong about us? How could my instincts have let me down like this? From the moment I saw that beautiful woman, I knew she was mine.

We fit together in some important way I didn't entirely understand yet. And truly, through the next near month that we had shared, I saw our fit become better and better.

She laughed more, played more. She trusted me, shared that keen mind of hers with me, shared moments of genuine, unfiltered joy. I knew she was good for me in every measurable way. But hell, I thought that I was good enough for her too. I _needed_ to be good enough for her. 

Not because of my alpha-male ego--well, okay, not _only_ because of my alpha-male ego--but because she truly deserved it. She deserved someone to be good for her.

Because it felt wrong to sponge up all that intelligence and determination without giving her something in return. All of that came crashing down that awful night in the hospital, of course, but there'd been some stubborn part of me that just refused to believe that she really meant the things that she had said. This silly, fragile hope that she would confess she'd pushed me away out of fear and wanted to make it right.

 _Too young, too coarse. A stupid waste._ Even now, the words rake over an unhealed wound, but even in my pain and shock that night, even through her cruel tone, I heard something almost sad in her voice when she had accused me of being reckless. _If you're so careless with your own life, how the hell can I trust you with my heart?_

Yes, I'm young, and yes, I'm probably coarse and reckless and everything else she had said---but I know the woman that I love. And I know that she's afraid and afraid with good reason.

I know that she's kept herself safe for a long time by keeping everyone else away. And I thought tonight when I chased after her.....

 _It doesn't matter. You were wrong_. She didn't confess to any of that. She didn't even apologize for crying out loud. She simply offered me her body. As of that were any kind of substitute for her heart. So now, here I am, alone and torn up and forced to acknowledge I was wrong about all of it.

She's not mine, and now I know, she never was.....

When I get in my car, I'm not even sure where I want to go. My apartment is still haunted by her. By the few odds and ends she left there. By the tea I bought for her and by the memories of her presence. 

I don't really feel like seeing any of my family or friends at the moment, and I don't really feel like getting a drink at the Dirty Nickel and watching whatever sports things is on the television there. Every place I can think of feels wrong because every place that I can think of is a place without her. I finally decide to hit the gym. 

It's attached to my duty station up north, and I've got a change of gym clothes in my locker. Better yet, since it's only for cops, it's usually only got one or two other people in it, and I'll have a chance at some privacy while I try to burn out these feelings. I try not to let myself think too much as I drive from the main station to my destination. I try not to think about Rey's silence when I had all but laid myself bare for her or about how she didn't correct me when I told her I knew she didn't love me like I loved her.

In fact, I try my damnest not to think about her at all. And I fail miserably on the act. All I want to do is see her, be with her and I know now that, that can never happen. 

An hour later, I'm sweaty and ragged, having set the treadmill to a dead sprint and then pounding out a run like I was being chased by ghosts, my arm wound screaming at me like hell the whole time. I grab my reusable water bottle and start chugging as I leave the gym and walk down the short hall to the locker room.

Even though my body is thirsty and beat, my mind is still chewing on itself, wondering where I went wrong. and, my chest is still feels like it's been cracked wide open.

I strip off my clothes--miserably, tugging on the waterproof sleeve over my bicep to protect the bandage there---and I shower---also miserably, too messed up to even touch the swelling erection my starved cock is offering up against the water. 

Even fatigued, my body remembers that just ninety minutes ago I had Rey pressed against me, ready and whimpering for me to slide inside her. Even while heartbroken, my flesh still aches for her. 

With a long, weary drawn-out sigh, I shut off the shower and wrap a towel around my waist. I slide the curtain aside with a vicious gesture, scowling down at my unrepentant cock.

"Flip, look at me."

"Jesus---"

My heart stops. The air turns to concrete in my lungs. I look up and see the woman that I love in front of me, still in her dress uniform, her hazel eyes of feeling and her Hollywood hair still tousled from where I kissed it earlier. 

Despite everything, my stomach flips over with an idiotic, naïve flip. I still want to see her. I still _want_ her even though I know better, and it's frustrating as hell. 

"What the hell do you want?" I ask, irritated that the words come out husky and curious when they should come out cold and flat.

But I can't help it. I can't help anything about how I feel about Rey. She could rip out my heart with her bare fingers right here and now and proceed to eat it in front of me, and I'd still want to pull her into my arms. But she doesn't look like she's come here to eat out my heart. Instead, she's sinking her teeth into her bottom lip and twisting her slender fingers in the department-issue necktie she's wearing with her dress uniform. 

She looks...well, nervous. But every second she doesn't speak reminds me that I'm damp and wearing nothing but a towel---and that towel has an oblivious erection twitching underneath it---and finally I say to her, "Look, we can talk later---"

"I haven't told you everything about Eric's death," she blurts out before I can even finish my sentence. 

Her eyes widen fractionally, as if she can't believe she really just said those words out loud, but then she takes a deep breath and forges on while I stand there frozen in nothing but my towel.

"--that night---that call---I got there first. The dispatch notes said that someone heard a woman screaming inside. Now we know it was the perp screaming, but then we thought it was someone else he was hurting..."

She trails off, and I nod because I know. Lots of situations require backup---but sometimes they require an officer's immediate intervention more. If she thought someone was in danger, of course she would have gone in alone. I certainly would have too had it been me. 

But that doesn't stop my pulse from spiking with worry, no matter how long ago this happened, and I think I possibly understand how Eric felt when he realized she'd gone in there without him.

"The power had been turned off. I told you that, of course, but did I ever tell you how hard it was raining that night? Flash floods all over town. The streets were like rivers. Every other step I took, there was a clap of thunder or a fresh gust of wind. Scared even me, and when I found the perp, he was huddled in the back room, crying and frightened. Abject, utter terror. Hearing him cry like that was...bone-chilling."

Rey takes yet another deep breath and looks up at the ceiling to gather herself properly. I can see she's on the verge of tears now.

"I started talking to him. It took a minute or two, but he began to settle down. He told me it wasn't a storm at all but people trying to kill him, and he was so, so scared. Had a kitchen knife with him in case "the people" made it into the house. But I managed to get him to set it down, managed to get him to make eye-contact with me, was able to say over the radio that the subject was alone and compliant and that we were in the back bedroom." 

"But then Eric---"

A tear spills over Rey's eye, and she wipes furiously at it as she nods. "He kicked in the back door---maybe because he thought it would be closer to the bedroom? If he'd just entered through the front door, which I'd already broken open, or if he'd just trusted that I'd call out on the radio if I needed help...."

"Rey, listen to me, it was the suspect that he didn't trust, not you."

She shrugs, and I know she thinks the distinction doesn't matter. And maybe for once she's right, maybe it doesn't. The outcome was all the same, after all. Eric was still dead. 

"It startled the suspect. He grabbed his knife and pushed past me and went down the hall towards the source of the unexplained noise. It was so dark, so fucking dark, and I tried to follow him, but I was tripping all over the trash in the hallway, and I---" Another tear, but she doesn't flinch away from her next sentence. "I was too late. Eric was on the floor....covered in his own blood....dead."

Her words hang in the cool, damp air of the locker room. I give her time to find her next words.

"He didn't have to die, Flip," she finally whispers. "Nobody had to. If only he'd just waited or taken a minute or two to stop and think and come through the front door....then....then he might still be here with me. He died _because_ of _me._ "

Oh God, suddenly I see exactly where this is going. "I'm not Eric, Rey." 

She shakes her head at me. "No. No, I know you're not. I can't fault Eric for trying to keep me safe that night. He was just doing his job, doing what he loved, and protecting who he loved the most, and I can't fault anything that you did with Pisani either. But I'm just trying to explain...why...."

I soften. "I know, _why_ , baby. It's never been a secret to me."

She looks down at her hands, still twisting in her tie. "I just thought that if I didn't let anyone in, then they'd be safe. And I let you in....and you got shot, you got hurt. You did the exact same thing that he did, and you rushed in and you almost got killed because of it! You can see why that's a little hard for me."

I wince. I hate how this is between us, this mountain of causality. This reality of our job, jagged and unsurmountable. "Rey."

She doesn't let me cut in; she keeps going. "But you know what? I'm so sick and tired of the hard things keeping me from what I really want in my life. I'm tired of all the walls and the precautions and the ice. I was wrong, Flip. Wrong about what I wanted."

Her words hit me good and hard, like a cold shot of top-shelf vodka. I think I feel those words buzzing in my veins.

"W-What do you mean?" I ask, voice rough. "Say what you mean, Rey. Say it." 

Her eyes are the sweetest, softest shade of green and gold, and she gives me a sad, pleading smile that makes me want to slay monsters for her, even if the monsters are the deadly sins between the two of us. It melts my heart, and rids of all the brokenness that had been attempting to wedge itself between us. 

"I mean I'm sorry for all the things that I said to you," she says. "They were all lies, Flip. The very worst lies that I could think of to make you hate me, to make you let me go. I'm too damn selfish to want you to find a better woman. I _want_ you with _me_. I _want_ to be your woman, job be damned." 

I can't help the hope that is now swelling in my chest like a balloon and I take a step forward, reaching for her immediately. She lets me. She lets me pull her into my chest with my good arm, and then she tilts her head back to look up into my face.

"I mean, I love you, Flip," she says softly, her hand comes up to cup my jaw. "You're too young and too brave and so very caveman about a lot of things---and I love you for it. I love you so much that I'm willing to be scared out of my mind. I'm willing to be vulnerable with you, around you. I love you so much that nothing else in this world matters to me!"

"Babe," I rumble, burying my face in her hair as I squeeze her even closer to me. "Babe, listen to me. Nothing else does matter. It never did to me. _You_ are the only thing that I care about, the only thing I want and need in my life."

"Oh, Phillip, can you ever forgive me? For all of the terrible things that I said to you?"

She speaks my real name for the first time and I have got to say, it sounds so weird and heavenly all at the same time. I could get used to hearing her say it on a daily basis. In fact, I find myself _really_ looking forward to waking up next to her every day for the rest of forever and hearing it tumble from her lips, though, Flip is totally fine with me as well.

Maybe we can just use "Flip" when she's feeling naughty and is in the mood for sex---hey, a guy can dream can't he? Besides, who wouldn't want to get lost in the moment with her? She's amazing. And all mine. 

God, I really do feel like I'm the luckiest guy on the planet right now. And there's no other feeling in the world to compare it to. It's just like winning something major, but better.

"I already have forgiven you," I say, and I mean it with my whole existence. It's the truth. 

"And for pushing you away? For leaving you the way that I did?"

"You're here now, and that's all that matters to me." I kiss her hair again, never able to get enough of that delicate silk against my lips, of that exquisite, expensive scent of hers. "Fuck, I love you so much, Rey. And yes, I was hurt and angry and all the things when you left me, but if you're willing to be open with me, then I'll be open with you. That's how this whole thing works. I don't see what we can't figure out if we have love and honesty."

I feel her smile against my chest. "So wise for one so young."

"Well, I kind of cheated on that one. I stole that line from my PTSD counselor, but I still mean it nonetheless." 

She laughs. "Good." She then kisses my chest, and my cock responds, surging again underneath the towel and brushing up against her. She then purrs a little. "Young man."

And then she reaches under the towel and gives me a firm urgent stroke. My eyes flutter closed. "Jesus Christ, Rey. You're going to unman me in this locker room."

"Maybe."

"So what happens next?" I manage to ask. "Does this mean....do I get to take you home with me?"

"Every day for the rest of forever, Zimmerman. But first..." Another hard stroke of her hand. I groan. "First," she whispers, "we're going to see just how fast you can make this ice queen of yours melt to water."

I smirk and then lean down to her ear and whisper. "Game on, baby."


	18. Chapter 18

FLIP ZIMMERMAN

EPILOGUE

_A year later......_

"You know, at some point, you're going to have to let me sleep, you caveman," Rey teases, but she parts her pretty thighs for me all the same as I walk toward the bed.

"We'll sleep tomorrow," I promise, giving my already primed cock a few slow strokes. 

Even though I just came back from putting away the warm cloth I used to clean her, I'm ready again. It's our third fuck of the night because I can't fucking get enough of her right now. I mean, I never have anyway, but right now, with my ring glinting on her finger and her belly heavy with our first child, I'm more of a caveman than ever. 

"But we have to work on the baby's nursery room tomorrow," she reminds me, idly plucking at her nipple as she watches me approach. "We should rest up....."

But her sensible words are canceled out by the hungry way she watches my cock bob up and down as I climb into the bed. 

"Not rest for the wicked, as they say, babe," I say, even though she is right about the nursery. 

I moved into her house when we finally got married half a year ago, and we've only just now finished integrating my things and turned to making the baby's room ready for his entrance in four more months. 

"I suppose we have time," she muses, her free hand going between her legs to toy with the place I've thoroughly pleasured tonight....and plan on pleasuring yet again in just a few seconds.

I grunt in agreement as I mount between her thighs and take myself in hand, giving myself a few deep, long strokes.

"Young man," she sighs, happily, petting my hard abs and sliding her palms up the flexed length of my quads. "My young handsome stud-muffin."

And then her sigh turns into a broken moan as I slide on inside. She's so wet and swollen from all our earlier play, which makes her slick as hell and tight as a fist. She cradles her own breasts as I give her a second, deeper thrust, and the sight of her hands plumping and squeezing her own tits is almost too much for me to take.

"Shit, babe," I mutter. "I'm gonna go fast if you keep on doing that." 

She just gives me a sly smile and continues the show, driving me to a state of indecent desperation and making my own palms itch to feel her.

With a low growl, I pull out and move us so that I'm lying behind her, my chest to her back and my cock prodding at her sweet pussy from behind. I nip her neck as I flex my hips and search out her tits with my own hands.

"Mine," I grunt.

"Yes," Rey gasps, arching so that her ass is pressed against my lap and her breasts press even harder into my hands. "All yours."

Her curves are irresistible like this, and my hands can't stop their possessive roaming as I take my time fucking her. I love the heavy weight of her tits now that they're growing full for our baby. I adore the swell of her belly that I helped create. I love them all so much that I tell her I'm going to have give more babies with her, maybe even seven or eight even, because I just love it so much.

Funny how she was afraid that I'd balk at having to choose a family too soon. If she'd asked me, I would have told her the truth. Nothing with her is ever toon soon.

She's been horny as hell ever since I knocked her up, and it takes her almost not time at all to cum again, writhing back against me and working my cock inside her to wring out ever last bit of pleasure. 

When she finally settles, limp and satisfied, I wrap her tight in my arms, pull her ass flush to my lap, and rock into her with slow, grinding slides, feeling my shaft thicken with the inevitable.

"Yes, give it so me, Officer," she whispers. "Ever fucking last drop of that hot cum of yours."

Fuck, she doesn't have to tell me twice. With another ferocious growl, I release all my love and passion into her, spurting hot and thick and wet inside her tight channel and flexing my hips to get deeper as I do. I've cum enough already tonight that this climax has a bite to it---a sharp ache with every dizzying pulse, and I love it.

I love knowing the ache comes from making her mine over and over again. From claiming her body so thoroughly that we're both spent and sweaty. And I finish my claim now with a bite on her neck.

Not enough to truly hurt her but just enough so she feels her caveman marking her on her skin and inside her body at the same time.

It feels so fucking good to empty inside her with my arms holding her tight, so good that my orgasm goes on and on and on, until finally I'm completely drained and not a little sore. I slide free with a kiss to her shoulder and go to get a fresh rag.

When I come back, she's got her hand on her stomach and her hazel eyes are wide with delight. "Flip," she murmurs. "I think you might be able to feel him from the outside now."

I practically sprint over to the bed, touching where she is. I've been dying to feel the baby move, to feel all the kicks and rolls that she's already been able to feel. And sure enough, after a long, quiet moment, I feel the slightest, faintest movement against my palm. 

And then again. And then again. I know that I'm smiling like the world's biggest idiot, but I don't even care at this point.

That balloon of hope I felt on that day Rey came back to me is so big in my chest, I think I might just float away any second now. No, I think I might already be floating.

"That's our baby," I say in awe.

"That's our baby," she says. "So you still want to have at least seven or eight of us running around the place?"

"No, I want more." I tease, nipping at her ear and finally cleaning her. "I want you pregnant all the time."

She rolls her eyes, but her little smile tells me she's in on the joke. I want us to have right size family for us, whatever that looks like and however we can balance it with both of us wearing badges. And while I jest that I want as many babies as she'll give me, she know that I'm completely content with any future of any kind.

More than content, I'm ecstatic. I'm married to the smartest, bravest, strongest woman in the entire world. Why wouldn't I be? And I'm about to be a father for the very first time.

Rey likes it when I exercise my "male prerogative," as she calls it, so when I finish cleaning her, I tuck her close to me and kiss her head and make all sorts of primal promises about what I'm going to do with her body as soon as we've rested up a little.

And then she falls asleep, snoring sweetly on my bicep with my other arm cradling her pregnant belly and her strong heartbeat thrumming under my palm.

No, this could never happen to soon. In fact, when it comes to the stunning, beautiful and clever woman of mine, nothing can ever happen fast enough. But I'm ready to face the uncertainty with her---I know we can face whatever comes our way as we always have--- _together._

_THE END_


End file.
